272 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

LookingGlass93 wrote...

DA:O asked players to accept without question that the Warden:
 - various origin plots (doing something about Jowan/getting married/working for Beraht etc)
 - would go with Duncan to Ostagar and become a Grey Warden
 - would seek to stop the Blight after Ostagar
 - would use the treaties to stop the Blight
 - would seek the Urn, a mythical object, to cure Arl Eamon
 - would not use their gathered armies to attack Loghain
 - would not kill Loghain, Howe and Cauthrien when they go to Eamon's estate.
 - would work with Anora, at least initially

I don't agree that DAO asks the player to accept all of those things.

Specifically:

 - would seek the Urn, a mythical object, to cure Arl Eamon

There's no requirement that the Warden actually think the Urn will cure Eamon.  What's important is that Eamon's people think the Urn will cure him, so retrieving the Urn is a way to win their favour.  If the Urn doesn't work, they can't blame the Warden for that.

 - would not use their gathered armies to attack Loghain

We have no reason to believe the gathered armies would attack Loghain if asked.  The Warden may well ask the armies to attack.  They just don't.

The game not modelling this conversation is akin to a tabletop DM telling you, out of character, "Dude, that's not going to work."

 - various origin plots (doing something about Jowan/getting married/working for Beraht etc)

First, the game has origins.  It establishes an immediate background for your character.  That's kind of the point of the design.  When announced, I complained that the oprigins would limit player agency by limiting him to just 6 possible immediate backgrounds, as opposed to just a starting location (like KotOR - you have to start on the Endar Spire, but there's no explanation at all as to what you're doing.there).

It's not worthwhile complaining about a limitation inherent in the game's design.  That the Casteless Dwarf is employed by Beraht isn't under your control.  What is under your control is how the Dwarf behaves within that employment.

As for Jowan, what other courses of action would you actually want available there?  You can help Jowan clandestinely, you can plan to betray him, you can turn him in.  What's missing?

There is an element of Jane Austen in the origins, in that the PC is generally assumed to be a slave to social expectations.  While I dislike Jane Austen for this exact reason, I don't see how else they could write the origins.  Ideally, yes, there wouldn't be any origins, and the game would just drop you in the world without explanation.

But DA2 does this even worse by forcing a background on you, forcing you to maintain relationships throughout the game, forcing you to display concern for those people throughout the game, and only giving you the one origin with which to work.

The only thing that made DAO's fixed backgrounds acceptable was that there were several among which to choose.  DA2 took away even that.

[MerinTB]

Seriously, I have run (and played in) plenty of table top campaigns where players have to be reigned in, where there are preset assumptions, where the party is told "You accepted a job to do X, and have arrived at destination Y" as the start of the adventure, etc.

You find me a video game or a table top campaign where the game / GM says to the player(s) - "Start wherever you want with whatever character concept you can possibly conceive of, and then tell me what you are doing and where you want to go." I cannot say that no GM has ever done that, but they would be the very rare exception, the outlier if you will.

For pretty much ALL role-playing games there are an abundances of "givens" that the players have to accept to play the game. Some to have game rules, some to fit the setting, some to fit a given storyline.

Because you can conceive of options you aren't give, choices you aren't allowed to make, or places you cannot go in a given game does not automatically mean that it doesn't give you ANY options, choices, places to go.

Things are not just one or the other: that's a false dichotomy. There ARE ranges between no choices and unlimited choices, and I'd argue ALL games fall somewhere between the two.

Also, there's often a false continuum being argued as well. Just because you can't draw a distinct line between "not enough choice/control" and "enough choice/control" does NOT mean that there is no difference.

[Joy Divison]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

As for Jowan, what other courses of action would you actually want available there?  You can help Jowan clandestinely, you can plan to betray him, you can turn him in.  What's missing?

To do nothing.

They should have come up with a better way to forward the story than force you to be a fool, a backstabber, or a nark.

Modifié par Joy Divison, 26 octobre 2011 - 07:26 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

You can do nothing. And then Duncan has no reason to recruit you, and you never leave the Circle Tower. Congratulations. You just played the whole game in under an hour.

[Fenderbaum]

Well I had to really motivate myself to play DA2 a second time, and the impact it had on my RPG experience was never to pre-order another Bioware game again

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
You can do nothing. And then Duncan has no reason to recruit you, and you never leave the Circle Tower. Congratulations. You just played the whole game in under an hour.

So many people seem to realize how this is a double choice -
- your character doesn't follow any of the game options and therefore the game has no more story to tell you, effectively ending the game with a "you lose" or, at the very least, an unstated "game over."
- you choosing that you don't like the direction of the game story and you stopped playing.

It's like "DA2 only offers human and I want to be a dwarf."  You choose to not play a human (or play a dwarf as much as DA2 allows) and therefore "game over" at the character selection screen.

Now if you want to see more of what DA2 has to offer, you select a human.

If you want to see more of what happens with the Circle Mage story of DA:O, you pick one of the options the game provides.

It's not rocket science.

[JaegerBane]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You can do nothing. And then Duncan has no reason to recruit you, and you never leave the Circle Tower. Congratulations. You just played the whole game in under an hour.

Indeed. Its not really a bad thing for the game to just not bother with offering the player stupid options - sure, they're funny to watch once (Mass Effect 2's Morinth romance would probably be the best example of this) but it really isn't necessary to give the player the feeling of personal choice.

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You can do nothing. And then Duncan has no reason to recruit you, and you never leave the Circle Tower. Congratulations. You just played the whole game in under an hour.

(Insert my canned "If a game doesn't actively support an option it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned, and this is the fundamental basis of my definition of what constitutes reactivity in a cRPG" argument here)

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 26 octobre 2011 - 08:13 .

[MerinTB]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You can do nothing. And then Duncan has no reason to recruit you, and you never leave the Circle Tower. Congratulations. You just played the whole game in under an hour.

(Insert my canned "If a game doesn't actively support an option it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned, and this is the fundamental basis of my definition of what constitutes reactivity in a cRPG" argument here)

But it does support it.  You can stop playing with that character, or playing the game entirely.  It's like not picking up side quests - you didn't pick up the main quest.

I don't see any difference between this and not choosing a dwarf in Origins, not picking a Malkavian in Bloodlines, chosing Tosh over Nova in StarCraft 2, or switching characters in a table-top campaign of D&D.

Or playing Fallout 1 and running right to the master and winning the game in 6 minutes.  A lot of content skipped, sure.

[upsettingshorts]

MerinTB wrote...

But it does support it.  You can stop playing with that character, or playing the game entirely.

"You can stop playing" is not support in my book, and no argument will ever convince me otherwise.  It's the opposite of support.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 26 octobre 2011 - 09:09 .

[MerinTB]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

MerinTB wrote...

But it does support it.  You can stop playing with that character, or playing the game entirely.

"You can stop playing" is not support in my book, and no argument will ever convince me otherwise.  It's the opposite of support.

Hit escape.  A game menu comes up.  One of the options is either Exit Game or Quit Game (I forget which it is for Origins ATM.)

There's a command implemented by the game for you to stop playing.

If having a game mechanism programmed into the game isn't the game supporting an option I don't know what is.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

(Insert my canned "If a game doesn't actively support an option it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned, and this is the fundamental basis of my definition of what constitutes reactivity in a cRPG" argument here)

Reactivity is, at best, a secondary concern.  Agency is vastly more important.

[upsettingshorts]

MerinTB wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

MerinTB wrote...

But it does support it.  You can stop playing with that character, or playing the game entirely.

"You can stop playing" is not support in my book, and no argument will ever convince me otherwise.  It's the opposite of support.

Hit escape.  A game menu comes up.

The game menu isn't part of "the game."  It's basically a launcher.  This is also related to why I don't care if a GUI looks like parchment in a medieval fantasy game, for example.

Here's one:  An alternative game-over.   If there isn't one, it's not support.  ME2's DLC Arrival has a decent example.  You can stop moving and fail to destroy the relay, then you get a cutscene of the Reapers arriving and everything going to hell.  That is support. 

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

(Insert my canned "If a game doesn't actively support an option it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned, and this is the fundamental basis of my definition of what constitutes reactivity in a cRPG" argument here)

Reactivity is, at best, a secondary concern.  Agency is vastly more important.

Agency without reactivity is utterly pointless to me.  I would not have any reason to play at all without it. 

An example to me of a game with a ton of agency but barely any reactivity - perhaps none, I tried it only once many years ago - would be Microsoft Flight Simulator.  "FLY WHEREVER YOU WANT.  NO-ONE CARES!"

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 26 octobre 2011 - 09:44 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Agency without reactivity is utterly pointless to me.  I would not have any reason to play at all without it. 

An example to me of a game with a ton of agency but barely any reactivity - perhaps none, I tried it only once many years ago - would be Microsoft Flight Simulator.  "FLY WHEREVER YOU WANT.  NO-ONE CARES!"

This is the best indication yet that you and I simply want different games.

[Joy Divison]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You can do nothing. And then Duncan has no reason to recruit you, and you never leave the Circle Tower. Congratulations. You just played the whole game in under an hour.

Interesting response from someone who refused to answer a letter from Merideth and could not complete the game.

In any event you're wrong.  Irving's "star pupil" was the reason why Duncan was at the Circle tower in the first place.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Joy Divison wrote...

Interesting response from someone who refused to answer a letter from Merideth and could not complete the game.

I did complete the game.  I just completed it earlier than most.

The situations are wholly analogous.

In any event you're wrong.  Irving's "star pupil" was the reason why Duncan was at the Circle tower in the first place.

I don't recall hearing that anywhere.  And regardless, if you do nothing at all to distinguish yourself, Duncan could well choose someone else - or leave empty-handed.  If Duncan was going to select you regardless of your actions, he could have just requested you be sent to Ostagar and saved himself the trip.

[Joy Divison]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Joy Divison wrote...

Interesting response from someone who refused to answer a letter from Merideth and could not complete the game.

I did complete the game.  I just completed it earlier than most.

The situations are wholly analogous.

In any event you're wrong.  Irving's "star pupil" was the reason why Duncan was at the Circle tower in the first place.

I don't recall hearing that anywhere.  And regardless, if you do nothing at all to distinguish yourself, Duncan could well choose someone else - or leave empty-handed.  If Duncan was going to select you regardless of your actions, he could have just requested you be sent to Ostagar and saved himself the trip.

Uldred refers to you as Irving's "star pupil."

When you walk into the room, Duncan says, "Is this she?" To which Irving responds in the affirmative.

The game makes it clear that the Mage Origins character has distinguished themselves from her peers and Irving and Duncan have already discussed her recruitment before the Jowen quest.

It is possible that the Jowen quest line reinforced Irving's faith in the Mage Origin character in Duncan's mind, though like the CE and HN origins, he already has someone in mind.  The Dalsih Elf and the dwarves are the ones who are recruited purely by impressing Duncan.

[MerinTB]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

MerinTB wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
But it does support it.  You can stop playing with that character, or playing the game entirely.

"You can stop playing" is not support in my book, and no argument will ever convince me otherwise.  It's the opposite of support.

Hit escape.  A game menu comes up.

The game menu isn't part of "the game."  It's basically a launcher.  This is also related to why I don't care if a GUI looks like parchment in a medieval fantasy game, for example.

So... hitting escape to bring up menu so you can level up your character, that isn't part of the game?  Bringing up the journal, with all it's entries, isn't part of the game?  The map?  The inventory?  None of those things are "reactive" because they are part of the game menu?

I hit a key,  I get a direct reactions from the game.  I push the W key and my character moves a little forward.  I push the S key and my character moves a little back.  I click a button on the hotbar and that icon's ability is activated.

I run my character into a burning wall of fire, he dies, game over.  I go to the menu, exit the game deciding that my character is retiring, game over.  I reach the end of the written story of the game and the credits roll, game over.

Why is one of those three mean nothing to you but the other two do?  Because of the menu screen popping up outside of your control, or because you get the credits to roll?

A person playing a table top game can decide that, for the current campaign the GM is running, that his or her character would not follow the story path laid out.  The GM's world will go on.  The player can just quit the game because the PLAYER doesn't want to play the game anymore -
that'd be like quitting Origins because you don't like the game...
OR the player can want to play the story but with a character who's personality fits the story, so they retire their character and bring in a new one -
that's like quitting your Origins Dalish Elf because your elf would never go into those caves where the mirror resides and, still wanting to play the game, you load up a human noble and decide to follow through with that character until the end of the game.

Because you choose to not see (or are unable to see) that difference between the two uses of "exit game" doesn't dismiss one of those two from being "role-playing" - it just means that you wouldn't do it (or don't consider it "role-playing" to you.)

Some people fill in a LOT of unseen and non-game-reactive stuff for their characters and have a blast.  I do it all the time with Icewind Dale, and I know other people who do, too.  All three of us who did my podcast review of Origins ascribed motivations and personalities to our mutliple playthroughs of Origins that the game would NEVER recognize but that we, the players, used as both motivations for decision making in the game AND used to continue the narrative off-screen, between encounters, in our heads.  THAT'S as much role-playing (if not MORE SO) than selecting a dialog option and seeing the game's prescripted response appear on the screen.

Modifié par MerinTB, 27 octobre 2011 - 12:55 .

[TheStrand221]

Of course you can make a roleplaying decision that leads to you stopping the game, everybody gets that. But what many people judge a game on is the content in the game itself, not just that you can make a decision at all. By your logic "The Witcher" is equivalent to DA:O for someone that wants to play a female PC, because if you wish to play a female you can load the game, see you are forced to play male, and then shut it off with a sigh of satisfaction at having made a decision. No, there is a difference. The latter has content to support the decision, while the former does not, and to some one who wants to make that decision there is a world of difference.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

If agency is all that mattered, you're better off writing your own story or fan fiction. Games attract people because of their interactivity, the ability to take an action and have the game provide feedback. This creates immersion, which is enjoyable for a lot of people. But taking an action that the game does not provide feedback for, or that the game even refuses to allow you to take at all, is immersion breaking. There is a substantive difference between making a choice for a Dalish proto-Warden to not go into the cave from the origin story and then having additional content to play through where she stays with her clan during the Blight, and having the game simply cease with no content to support your decision.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

The game menu isn't part of "the game."

That's an arbitrary distinction.

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

The game menu isn't part of "the game."

That's an arbitrary distinction.

Perhaps to you and MerinTB.

To me the distinction is self-evident.

[Zanallen]

I still want critical fail options. Give the player the chance to do something silly and then have it end the game with a quick cut scene showing their failure. That way, if the devs want to steer the narrative in one way, they can still give the option to do things different. That option just ends the game. Like if you didn't want to do the Joining in DAO, there could be a quick scene of Duncan killing you as he did Ser Jory and then game over.

[TheStrand221]

What the hell is arbitrary about a distinction between an interface used to load game files, manage video options, etc. and the actual "playable" portion of the game where the content is? There is nothing arbitrary about that at all.

Inventory menus, character screens, etc. are all part of the game sure, but they're part of the "playing" portion.

[TheStrand221]

Zanallen wrote...

I still want critical fail options. Give the player the chance to do something silly and then have it end the game with a quick cut scene showing their failure. That way, if the devs want to steer the narrative in one way, they can still give the option to do things different. That option just ends the game. Like if you didn't want to do the Joining in DAO, there could be a quick scene of Duncan killing you as he did Ser Jory and then game over.

Seconded.

Preferably with an autosave beforehand.

[Zanallen]

TheStrand221 wrote...

Seconded.

Preferably with an autosave beforehand.

Yeah, and/or maybe a warning within the dialogue.

*Chooses not to do the ritual*

Duncan: "You are trying my patience, boy. You know the consequences of refusal. Are you so sure you wish to join Ser Jory?"

*Chance to change mind*