384 réponses à ce sujet

[Kreid]

I don't even try to roleplay in DA2, there's either 3 one-dimensional Hawkes or a single bipolar one, that's it.
I appreciate the DA team trying to give us some possibilities given the times but they have a really long way to go..

Modifié par Creid-X, 31 octobre 2011 - 12:11 .

[TheRealJayDee]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

With a voiced PC however, your character is at the mercy of the writers, but Mass Effect still managed to pull off the ability to roleplay a variety of characters.

Morroian wrote...

DA2 inspired me to imagine the possibilities surrouding Hawke and role play more different types of Hawkes than MEs flat delivery.

I'm with Gibb on this. I only ever really started playing Mass Effect after I got frustrated with DA2, and at first I was quite unhappy with the prospect of having another voiced PC. Because having all my Hawkes having the exact same voice really bugged me and made it difficult for me to create a variety of different characters. But for some reason I have about half a dozen Shepards now, and I never had much of a problem with them feeling not distinct enough.

The writing, Commander Meer's voice and his delivery of the lines in ME made it possible to create characters that were vastly different from each other, and I mostly felt like I could actually roleplay them like I wanted. This wasn't the case in DA2. For me Boulton's voice didn't fit a lot of characters I had in mind to begin with and was too distinct to play two male Hawkes in a row without it feeling weird. The paraphrases, the lack of a neutral tone, my problems with the voice in general and certain shortcomings in DA2 made roleplaying my Hawkes difficult.

[eroeru]

ME's voice acting really does seem more neutral in a good way - again, it lets one have room for interpreting.

[TEWR]

DreGregoire wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Sure you can imagine that there are 15 ways to say a line, but then you also have to think that everyone you're traveling with is incompetent at having interactions with another human being in order to get those various ways to even work a little bit.

And the companions are not incompetent at having interactions with other people.

It's not even about them being incompetent in interactions, because to me I felt that their response to my "attitude" was well thought out. Somebody choosing to take something somebody says a different way is actually a sign of a competent people person. And how they respond can have an even greater impact on how my pc perceived things. How many times has somebody spoken to you in a certain manner and you have attempted to deflect it into a different direction by responding in a manner you hope will defuse the situation?

Not to mention that how you imagined your character saying something and a companion misunderstanding your intent is more natural to me than everybody always knowing you are being a jerk, nice, or snarky

If you made jokes to people and they took it as an insult or you being an angry dick all the time, would you feel that was a "natural response"? Or would you feel that they can't be a part of a conversation because they're misconstruing how you're saying something?

A once-in-a-while misunderstanding how someone said something is okay, but if characters in a game do this all the time it's not okay. It's not how people act. People pick up on the intent of how something is said. Body language and how something is said is key, and if a player chooses an option in DAO and imagines it's said one way, only to find out it was taken another way, then that to me is a problem. It's a big problem if this happens repeatedly to the player, because no one -- and by no one I mean the companions -- is so obtuse that they wouldn't be able to pick up on sarcasm, anger, and the like.

Perhaps if the companions themselves weren't voiced as well this wouldn't be an issue, but it wouldn't add as much life to the characters IMO if everyone was silent.

I even don't see the Warden as being a silent protagonist because of the battle voice sets. How can a person imagine a voice for their Warden if the game is constantly giving them another voice in the background that they themselves picked for said Warden, which effectively makes it the Warden's voice?

I mean, I know how. It just doesn't make sense to me because the Warden isn't a true silent protagonist.

IMO of course.

[eroeru]

Interesting point there.

But I came to post because I stumbled across this character-creation guide-line on a very random Role-play site:

"
"And so we were created, each of us separate and unique, each with a boundless capacity for good and a limitless potential for depravity."
- The Book of Promises

The character creation process is arguably the most important aspect of a role-playing game. Without meaningful and well-envisioned characters, the game is nothing but the shell of a story. But if our main characters (the players) are brimming with color and depth, we begin to connect to the setting. These characters breathe life into our story. Flat, cardboard cutout characters only serve to dull the emotional thrust of our tale.

So, dear reader, the author encourages you to spend time on the creation process. Give your character complexity and sophistication. Look beyond mere numbers to the core of the character. You will be well rewarded for your hard work.
"

Quite an insightful way to view role-play mechanics at work, don't you think?

[DreGregoire]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


 would you feel that was a "natural response"? Or would you feel that they can't be a part of a conversation because they're misconstruing how you're saying something?

A natural response for who? Based on whose perception? A person misunderstanding your intentions (more than once or not) doesn't give them any less of a right to be part of a conversation than the next person.

Now you can of course, in reallife, decide not to have further contact with that type of person because they are too odd (or whatever) for you to associate with. *shrugs* That's on you.

In reality people misconstrue the intent of other people on a regular basis. One person's tone of voice is not always understood by the other person.

Modifié par DreGregoire, 31 octobre 2011 - 01:59 .

[TEWR]

DreGregoire wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


 would you feel that was a "natural response"? Or would you feel that they can't be a part of a conversation because they're misconstruing how you're saying something?

A natural response for who? Based on whose perception? A person misunderstanding your intentions (more than once or not) doesn't give them any less of a right to be part of a conversation than the next person.

Now you can of course, in reallife, decide not to have further contact with that type of person because they are too odd (or whatever) for you to associate with. *shrugs* That's on you.

In reality people misconstrue the intent of other people on a regular basis. One person's tone of voice is not always understood by the other person.

Perhaps natural response wasn't quite the right wording. It is indeed a natural response for someone to misunderstand a person's comment.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be a part of a conversation nor am I saying I would cease contact with another person for misunderstanding something. But the fact that the companions take it one way and the player isn't given an option to correct them -- like many people do in fact do in real life -- means that the comment must've been meant the way the companion took it.

I'm not advocating for the player to always be able to correct them like they could do to Voldrik Glavonak, but people do in fact go "That was a joke" or "I was serious" when someone misconstrues something.

[Gibb_Shepard]

eroeru wrote...

Interesting point there.

But I came to post because I stumbled across this character-creation guide-line on a very random Role-play site:

"
"And so we were created, each of us separate and unique, each with a boundless capacity for good and a limitless potential for depravity."
- The Book of Promises

The character creation process is arguably the most important aspect of a role-playing game. Without meaningful and well-envisioned characters, the game is nothing but the shell of a story. But if our main characters (the players) are brimming with color and depth, we begin to connect to the setting. These characters breathe life into our story. Flat, cardboard cutout characters only serve to dull the emotional thrust of our tale.

So, dear reader, the author encourages you to spend time on the creation process. Give your character complexity and sophistication. Look beyond mere numbers to the core of the character. You will be well rewarded for your hard work.
"

Quite an insightful way to view role-play mechanics at work, don't you think?

I completely agree with him/her. The ability to craft a unique character in a fictional setting can make even the worst games shine. 

[eroeru]

Whilst it is quite understandable that more "voice" is given to the Warden, and that some feel he/she needs a voice-actor simply because of the fact companions have voices in this game (as opposed to the pre-Kotor Bioware - and no, the fact the Warden had a few shouts didn't give him significant voice), I did really enjoy the possibility of a mysterious or a bit "subtle-pretense-ironic" character. This guy or gal had a undertone with all (or at least most) things he/she said. These underlinings always went unnoticed by others, be it more or less - but it never was distractive cause the Warden would just smirk and leave it at that. Just like real life - another person cannot possibly see through all your intentions and misinterprets always in some manner.

Gregoire has a good point. "In reality people misconstrue the intent of other people on a regular basis."

Edit: meaning that I mostly enjoy characters who are really whole and a bit individualistic as they don't care if their subtle remarks or emotions go unnoticed - it can even be of some smirking-melancholic merit - thus they're very self-conscious (Bioware could at least give the possibility of this type - I for one imagine many great "heroes" in real life had these traits to them).

Modifié par eroeru, 31 octobre 2011 - 03:11 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

I like it when choosing dialogue options is merely one facet of roleplaying character concepts.

Gameplay, character building and actually being able to do what you want your character to do (whether that entails narrative branching and "choice", or varied if not open ended gameplay) is ultimately the better part of roleplaying for me.

If my character is intelligent, sardonic, holds a belief of utilitarianism because of personal experience and tries to explain away his kleptomania by falling back on said belief of utilitarianism (I need the magic sword of awesomeness because I'll put it to better use than this chump merchant who just wants to sell it), having the ability to respond dryly or sarcastically in conversation may equate to roleplaying to some people, but if that's the only aspect of the game that's considered roleplaying, then it's not fun for me.

For me, roleplaying means as a player, I am able center my character build based on a concept that I create - skills and abilities that my character feels are important to him/her, not just stacking the highest damage. It means that I play as that - by combining both his skillset and the character concept personality in a way that allows me to pass the game's challenges in a particular way, it means that both my character's build and personality informs me in making decisions (moral or otherwise) and seeing the consequences of those actions.

Essentially, a framework which allows me to develop and build a character concept and having gameplay that makes use of it.

Now, no game will ever be perfect from that standpoint but there are games that handle this principle better than others, depending on how it implements various mechanics.

For example, if my character is Intelligent, then those stats ought to affect how my character engages in dialog. If my character is Cunning, that ought to affect how I can manipulate others for my own gain. Conversely speaking, if my character has a low Intelligence stat, he ought to be dumb as a doorbell. Unfortunately, the types of games that really try to integrate character system into roleplaying to that level are not well perceived by the gaming community (people hate teh stats and numbers), even if logical concepts that match with it are popular.

So I guess to that extent, Dragon Age 2 is much harder to roleplay because it fails at really connecting all of that (for me). The way specialisations are handled (no plot relevance, major cutting), the removal of skill checks and a host of other issues makes it less fun to roleplay than other games such as Witcher 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Which - from a mechnical standpoint - can be argued aren't RPGs at all.

Which is a pity, because the interactions between characters is undoubtedly the focus of not just Dragon Age 2, but BioWare games in general and if these areas of gameplay and roleplaying (from my perspective) were improved and built upon from Origins instead of cut, then I'd think that Dragon Age 2 would be a lot more well received. Varying character interactions meshes well with a more flexible character system and a robust choice/consequence design.

Now, in terms of specific, conversational roleplaying, my opinions of that generally fall in line with that of DreGregoire. So I don't really have much to add on this particular issue.

I would also agree with the OP that a neutral tone with enough exposure as the other ones would be a good idea, or that the level of the other tones be... umm... toned down. Tone and intention are often bundled into one, with the paraphrases compounding the problem by not making the intention and content of the dialog clear before choosing it.

For example, you might not want a Friendly or Agreeable tone despite being Diplomatic about your response - maybe you want cold hard, logic. Maybe you want (or don't want) Aggression in your Threats. Maybe you want a light hearted joke rather than over the top whack with a hammer sarcasm.

While in most cases this isn't a problem, the potential is easily there. That's before you run into actual content differences between paraphrase and actual dialog.

So in that sense, finding a way to distinguish them through better a better paraphrase system (Deus Ex: HR) or changing tonal based dialog to content based dialog (as Witcher 2 and Mass Effect does) might be a good idea.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 31 octobre 2011 - 07:06 .

[megski]

KilrB wrote...

Forget paraphrasing and tones ...

Show me one way I could have killed Petrice, her side-kick, and the Qunari mage the first time I met all three and knew "this is going to be trouble".

Show me how the Viscount, Seamus, and Orsino or Meredith could still be alive at the end.

Show me how Hawke was the "Champion of Kirkwall".

Show me how I could become "Ruler of Kirkwall".

The idea that we were role-playing Hawke is rubbish.

We were just along for the ride, not in the driver's seat ... and we had to ride in the back too.

Aww and I get carsick when I ride in the back   

[eroeru]

mccrusty nailed it, I deem.

[TheRealJayDee]

mrcrusty wrote...

[...quote of awesome...]

Well said!

Rojahar wrote...

Try using the diplomatic options. Just because there's a blue symbol doesn't mean they're friendly or cheerful. Quite a few are pretty neutral and all-business. Your problem, I'm guessing, is that you're focusing more on the symbols than the paraphrases and assuming that you should pick red/purple options. Don't be afraid to go outside the color archetypes and mix things up a bit when appropriate.

On my second playthough I ended up focussing more on the symbols than the paraphrases, because after the first time I just accepted that the paraphrases too often wouldn't really tell me what my character was going to say, at least not clear enough to actually 'work' with it.

[Gibb_Shepard]

Rojahar wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

 At the moment i'm trying to play a stoic character whom has a cynical view of the world, yet does attempt to do as much good as he can. And it's pretty much impossible. My character is not an angry man, and is usually calm and collected even under the most stressful circumstances. But the only choices i have are to be a kissass or an aggressive ass. The character fits into neither of those categories, and he seems fairly basic from a roleplaying stand point. 

On top of this, when i do have to pick between condemning someone to death or asking if i can look for their long lost mother, the character's voice is COMPLETELY different. NO ONE's voice lowers several octaves when they are aggressive like Hawke's does, it gives a bipolar quality that i have not yet seen in a game. Between this bipolar voice change, lack of neutrality and horribly done paraphrases; it is ridiculously hard to roleplay in this game. 

But i guess it's my fault for attempting to make a character that isn't 1 dimensional. 

Believe it or not; adding a neutral option, entire sentences (No more paraphrasing, please? Look at DX: HR) and a voice that can express anger without going from Isabella to Fenris tonality wise, the game's roleplaying ability would be a lot more in-depth. Hell, ME has two of these already sorted out, a neutral option and VA's that can express different moods without sounding like they just smoked a pack of cigarettes. 

Your problem, I'm guessing, is that you're focusing more on the symbols than the paraphrases and assuming that you should pick red/purple options. 

The thing is, the paraphrases are a horrible indicator of what they're going to say. Many of the Sarcastic dialogue has a neutral sounding paraphrase, but then of course it comes out sarcastically. 

Modifié par Gibb_Shepard, 31 octobre 2011 - 12:47 .

[Marvin_Arnold]

Ever noticed that from the very beginning of DA2, you are "the Hero of Kirkwall"?

This was never meant to be "your" story, but Hawke's. You get a lot of choices (more than in Mass Effect for sure, which I just happened to play before DA2) other than dialogue (and as I am a snarky character myself, I mostly choose the "blue" option, but I don't feel uncomfortable when choosing one of the others), but the story has already happened when you start the game; you are not "you" but Hawke.

This is the problem I alwas have with a voiced PC: It's not "you", he is a person of his own, with his own personality that you can only adapt at or get frustrated. DA:O was more open because the PC was more or less an "empty page" from the beginning.

And regarding the more "vivid" (or disjointed) changes of mood in the dialogue options compared to Mass Effect: In ME, you play a restrained military officer, who is not only in command of his unit, but also of his feelings (most of the time). As the game design itself, he is more "shades of grey" than "black, pink and white" Hawke in DA2, who is many things except restrained or military.

And so we have people complaining about bipolar characters and at the same time that they are one-dimensional. I always play "chaotic" characters that's what most people are anyway, so alternating between "green, blue, and red" is quite natural. (more so than in Mass Effect, where you knew which answers would earn you either paragon or renegate points.)

There are many things wrong in DA2 for sure, and I wonder why the had to fix a formula that wasn't broken (DA:O), (methinks someone in executive told them to "make it more like Mass Effect!", of which many game mechanics in DA2 seem to be a carbon copy, or "we need to conquer the casual gamer market, so keep it simple/dumb it down!", which I as the control freak I am, think is the bigger flaw of DA2), however regarding RPG dialogue immersion, it seems you'll never be able to make everyone happy.


It seems to me that many who complain here would be very happy playing a pen-and-paper RPG hosted by a (human) DM who can adapt to your every whim.

Maybe they should. You also get to meet people that way...

P.S.:
By the way, as I just saw that:

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

 At the moment i'm trying to play a stoic character whom has a cynical view of the world, yet does attempt to do as much good as he can.

That's impossible. A cynical character doesn't care about the state the world is in, and doesn't do good, because he has given up caring and thinks it's pointless. Maybe you mean a sarcastic character?

Modifié par Marvin_Arnold, 31 octobre 2011 - 01:12 .

[whykikyouwhy]

The paraphrases didn't seem so far off the mark to me. I knew that the middle/purple option would be sarcastic, and was meant to be indicative of a more jesting Hawke, so I always figured that the corresponding audio response would be snarky in tone.

[Gunderic]

Zanallen wrote...

eroeru wrote...

It is vastly different, as many players have pointed out their frustration.

First off, I can imagine countless possibilities into the meaning of text-based responses. The benefit of Bioware's games (the ones until DA:O) is a loose direction without a certain tone, attitude, but rather with well written often five-six possibilities that give a direction, but do not define.

DA2 is defined and very movie-like. Exactly how I don't like a (hopefully) choice-based RPG (or any game). I can place myself in the shoes of Hawke as likely as I can with any movie-character. It doesn't feel like my character, it is more pre-defined (to a large and onto-frustration sufficient extent)...

You might be able to imagine countless possibilities, but that doesn't mean they exist. The NPCs only respond to one possibility. That is the tone and intent established by the writer when he wrote the line and the NPC's response. The certain tone and attitude is there, it is just less apparent without a voiced protagonist. And no, you did not get five or six possiblities. You received three or four. The rest were investigate options. Same with DA2.

Uh no, player avatars were ( especially in BioWare games) always tended to have more neutral/concise/vague responses. They always say one short sentence or two and leave NPC's rattling on about their problems. That's not the case with a voiced protagonist. The problem with voiced protagonists is that writers have to make them both interesting to listen to and leave a bit of player agency/interpretation intact, which distracts from other, better-written characters in the game. You may disagree with this, but Brent Knowles certainly doesn't:

For me I find having a voiced protagonist that I'm suppose to inherit makes me less engaged with the story and the other characters... instead of focusing on what my party members are saying, I'm constantly being distracted by own chattering. In a sense, once the protag has a voice, all the secondary characters even if written as brilliantly as before, become somehow diminished. The spotlight that was on them is now being pointed somewhere else.

And unfortunately that 'somewhere else' is going to be a more weakly written character because, in the hope of still giving players some semblance of player ownership, the voiced protagonist doesn't have as strong a personality as a protag in a movie or book would have. So in reality the player is controlling the 'weakest' character in the presentation. And the spotlight is on that character.

Play New Vegas. The player character is intended to completely function as an avatar. Or prove me wrong and tell me how many stupid shallow personality builds the the Courier has.

Modifié par Gunderic, 31 octobre 2011 - 01:18 .

[TheRealJayDee]

Marvin_Arnold wrote...

It seems to me that many who complain here would be very happy playing a pen-and-paper RPG hosted by a (human) DM who can adapt to your every whim.

Maybe they should. You also get to meet people that way...

I do, for about as long as I play videogames. And yeah, it will always be a superior experience in terms of roleplaying. Still, DA2 made it harder for me to roleplay my character than it's predecessor and even the Mass Effect games did. I'd prefer that to change for the next DA game.

[Gibb_Shepard]

Marvin_Arnold wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

 At the moment i'm trying to play a stoic character whom has a cynical view of the world, yet does attempt to do as much good as he can.

That's impossible. A cynical character doesn't care about the state the world is in, and doesn't do good, because he has given up caring and thinks it's pointless. Maybe you mean a sarcastic character?

Completely untrue. A cynical character can still try to do good, you are speaking of a completely 1 dimensional person. One can be a cynic and still try to do what he or she views as good.

And honestly, i have no idea how you could think someone means sarcastic when they say cynic. The two aren't even remotely similar. 

whykikyouwhy wrote...
The paraphrases didn't seem so far off the mark to me. I knew that the middle/purple option would be sarcastic, and was meant to be indicative of a more jesting Hawke, so I always figured that the corresponding audio response would be snarky in tone.

You misunderstood the coversation. I was explaining why going by the paraphrases as opposed to the coloured tones will lead to an unexpected remark, not that i think the dialogue options themselves are misleading.

Modifié par Gibb_Shepard, 31 octobre 2011 - 02:18 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

A cynic is one who believes that people do things for ultimately selfish reasons. Basically, one who has no faith in the concept of altruism and is generally distrustful of other people and human nature.

However, cynic =/= nihilist.

Your character can be a cynic who does try to do good things if they are able to reconcile their unselfish actions with their cynicism - in the context of an RPG, this is quite easy since you're rewarded with lootz and teh monies all the time. More subtly, your character could reason internally that doing good things gives them a sense of accomplishment, acceptance and a variety of other things that validates their own self worth in some way.

As to how that relates to Dragon Age 2's ability to roleplay, idk. Just wanted to expand on Gibb's point that a cynic can do good things. I said my piece in regards to DA 2 and RP'ing dialogue earlier, anyways.

[FASherman]

Repeat after me...

Good, sarcastic, mean
Good, sarcastic, mean
Good, sarcastic, mean
Good, sarcastic, mean

Thats all you get and expecting anything more is ridiculous.

[whykikyouwhy]

Paraphrasing is always going to be limited, because it is simply that - paraphrasing. Trying to contain 2-3 sentences of a reply within 5-6 words, as well as capturing tone, will be tricky, at best. But with DA2, just by reading the instruction booklet, and getting a familiarity with the game settings and controls, a player knows to expect that there are 3 tones that Hawke can take, regardless of any color coding. I think in this regard, knowing those options going in, the paraphrasing did not really deviate from the ultimate tone given.

I suppose, if using a combination of responses to set the overall mood and characteristics of Hawke didn't properly allow a person to feel the character was more than static, or allow a player to inject his/her imagination enough into the PC, maybe alternate or additional tones need , I had no issues role-playing Hawke, with all of her variances and nuances of emotional range. Ultimately, people are going to play the game differently, are going to come to the figurative table with different perspectives and expectations. At some point, a player just has to build from the core up. I just felt that I had a solid foundation to do so.

[AlexXIV]

I think you should pick what goes through Hawke's head, and then look what he says. So you get both, his thoughts and his words, which does not neccesarily need to be the same. I guess what confuses people is that the option they chose does not equal the words Hawke uses. Basically you will often not say what you think. Because it's not a very good idea to tell a templar commander that he/she is a ******. Even if it's true.

[jlb524]

Marvin_Arnold wrote...
This is the problem I alwas have with a voiced PC: It's not "you", he is a person of his own, with his own personality that you can only adapt at or get frustrated.

I personally like that, as I don't RP as 'myself' but as a character that I create.

I see it this way, BW gives me a skeleton of a character and it's my job to fill in the rest to create a whole person.  I never have free reign to create a character from a blank slate and am always restricted by what this skeleton is, but I can further define it through my in-game actions or the role-playing I do in my head.

I've experienced this with every BW game I've played, not just DA2.

Marvin_Arnold wrote...
DA:O was more open because the PC was more or less an "empty page" from the beginning.

I'm not sure why people keep saying this.  No it wasn't.  Each origin was just as defined as Hawke's 'origin' (Ferelden blight refugee).

AlexXIV wrote...
Basically you will often not say what you think. Because it's not a very good idea to tell a templar commander that he/she is a ******. Even if it's true.

This is no different from Origins in my experience.  My Dalish elf couldn't speak her mind...hell, she couldn't even agree with Velanna when she went off on a 'humans suck' tangent in Awakening.  My choices were basically variations of, 'Humans aren't so bad.'

Modifié par jlb524, 31 octobre 2011 - 03:44 .