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[DreamwareStudio]

LPPrince wrote...

When I think of the fantasy genre, high fantasy is usually all that comes to mind.

That's understandable.  It is currently the most popular of the fantasy genres.

[LPPrince]

And KoA is only going to add to it.

[esper]

@Google_calasade: I am a little confused as to why you would not define dragon which too is set in an entirely different world as High Fantasy.
But I agree with you definition that was the one I found when I researched it back in my days.

Edit. Just saw that you did define it as high fantasy. That's what I get for reading too fast

Modifié par esper, 16 janvier 2012 - 10:23 .

[LPPrince]

Speaking of Dragon Age, when do we think we'll see another title?

Are we gonna wait till the next gen consoles? Could there possibly be an MMO like Amalur's MMO?

[esper]

Hopefully not an MMO because then I am out of here.

[LPPrince]

They wouldn't make an MMO and just drop the single player games.

Or would they?

[Das Tentakel]

LPPrince wrote...

Oh look, more vibrance in reality.

I was born in this place:



studied here:



and am living here:



Here's  a painting of how it used to look like a little over a century ago:



Very Witcher-esque.

I think it is one (not the only one) reason why medieval-esque fantasy cities often feel unconvincing to me.
What is also clear is that The Witcher sticks pretty close to the original source material that inspired the fantasy genre in general. Thedas, on the other hand, is very much a 'fourth-generation' fantasy setting, i.e. it takes most of its inspiration from D&D and post-Tolkien fantasy, rather than from the fantasy classics themselves, let alone their sources.

That's not a bad thing though, there is something to be said for instant recognisability, and story and gameplay are very important too. Better a well-made game in a cliché setting, than a badly made game in an original or authentic-looking setting. Prior to its major facelift the original Witcher was not something I would have recommended.

Modifié par Das Tentakel, 21 janvier 2012 - 10:04 .

[LPPrince]

Beautiful pictures.

Makes me wish that CERTAIN GAMES LOOKED LIKE THAT.

Applejack-"Hint hint."

[Das Tentakel]

I will certainly be trying out the KoA demo, but I would like to point out that colour use is only one of several things needed for immersiveness. And I define immersiveness as something that works for as broad a range a people as possible among the intended audience. Including the potentially more critical adult and precocious adolescent fantasy / RPG fans.

By themselves, the stylised graphics and use of colour in KoA are not immersive. However, they can help in creating a mood, just like music. Any immersiveness is the result of the larger package. Fable, for instance, immediately looks a bit ‘kiddie’, which can be off-putting to adult and many adolescent gamers alike, but it compensates for it in other ways (voice acting, hand-crafted look, NPC responses etc.). Despite its limitations and the many justified criticisms, the first Fable had lots of little details that helped in making it immersive, despite its corridors-and-rooms structure.
For instance, you could witness lanterns being set alight by hand in Bowerstone during the evening; people actually slept under covers; you could look through windows and enter and leave houses without a loading screen, etc.
WoW received a lot of flak for its ‘kiddie’ art and it was certainly a barrier to entry to a lot of people, but when I played it the totality of the game – zone design, the relatively ‘open’ nature of the game, music and sound etc. won me over, at least for a time.

A DA game being immersive or not does not depend on colour use or art style alone. Graphically, DA:O was pretty underwhelming (even downright ugly) in many respects.
Personally, I have two major problems with DA2 apart from any beef I may have with gameplay and story, and that is, first, that Bioware decided to release it as it was (making me question their judgment and dedication to quality), and second, that Thedas still doesn’t have a clearly defined character of its own.

That problem goes deeper than just colour or art style I think. Like other fantasy game settings, Thedas was patched together in a relatively short time and by committee. It is simultaneously a ‘everything including the kitchen sink’ setting (if intermediate in feel between The Forgotten Realms and Westeros) with everything from Elves and Dwarves to Orc-analogs AND a setting that is way too reminiscent of medieval Europe.
I mean, it has a Rome-analog (Tevinter), an England-analog (Ferelden), a France-analog (Orlais), a Roman Catholic Church (the Chantry) and military orders (the Templars and the Grey Wardens). The fantasy veneer is very thin, though that can be said of The Witcher’s world as well. The main difference is that The Witcher generally does a much better job of copying its real-world inspiration and turning it to 11.

It’s also in little things that you notice this. Kirkwall’s name is a case in point, being the real-world capital of Orkney. That’s pretty damn lazy: there is a reason why most fantasy settings invent their names, taking either simple constructed names (Freeport, Waterdeep) or fantasy ones like Ferelden, Amn or Gondor. It signals ‘You’re not in Kansas anymore’; using names of real places is very immersion-destroying. In an American context: How immersive would ‘the city-state of Nashville’ sound?

Again, The Witcher’s world is also guilty of this, with for instance a small kingdom called Brugge (after the medieval city of Brugge/Bruges in Flanders) in it. It’s just as annoying, and indicative of the fact that The Witcher’s world is, at its heart, very much a relatively generic fantasy pastiche setting like Thedas, and in some ways it’s perhaps even lazier and more generic.
However, the Witcher’s setting knows exactly what it is and what mood to strive for, whether you’re talking about Sapkowski’s stories or the games. This compensates for the potentially rather weak and by-the-numbers setting.

DA, although the games are very much their own thing (with their stress on voice acting and party-based tactical combat), seems to be unsure of itself as a setting. It still seems very malleable. Personally, I think it evolving into a stylised cartoony high fantasy / high magic setting would be very risky in itself, because there are a ton full of games who do that already; it is no longer as distinctive as it once may have been.

KoA’s style has been compared to Fable, but to be honest, it does not look like Fable at all, apart from a certain ‘cartooniness’. It seems to lack that distinctive Anglo-European charm which is Fable’s trademark. I have a gut feeling that it will quickly sink beneath the waves, though it’s possible it will be saved by way of gameplay and/or story. The name itself is not very confidence-inspiring though. I hope the demo gives a better impression.

Modifié par Das Tentakel, 16 janvier 2012 - 11:58 .

[LPPrince]

While I do not agree with everything in your post DT, it was a fine post indeed. Very well crafted.

[Savber100]

LPPrince wrote...

Speaking of Dragon Age, when do we think we'll see another title?

Are we gonna wait till the next gen consoles? Could there possibly be an MMO like Amalur's MMO?

I'm willing to bet that we'll be hearing about DA3 by the end of this year. 


The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3 will all be out of the way by then so DA3 (or a new RP IP) will be taking the center stage for 2013 alongside Command and Conquerors: Generals 2. 

I'll be very surprised if we don't have at least some news by this summer. 

[LPPrince]

I can be patient and wait for a new DA title. DA2 soured me enough that DA3 could take as long as DAO took to finish and I'd support it.

[CARL_DF90]

Right now, I only hope that the team learns from past mistakes and UPGRADES that outdated graphics engine. I have a funny feeling that DAII would have taken a little less heat if the graphics were a little more robust, and LESS like an Xbox1 game. Still, I have a feeling that we shouldn't worry too much. EA has enough studios and technology under its belt that it SHOULDN'T be much of a problem.

[Pzykozis]

Das Tentakel wrote...

A DA game being immersive or not does not depend on colour use or art style alone. Graphically, DA:O was pretty underwhelming (even downright ugly) in many respects.
Personally, I have two major problems with DA2 apart from any beef I may have with gameplay and story, and that is, first, that Bioware decided to release it as it was (making me question their judgment and dedication to quality), and second, that Thedas still doesn’t have a clearly defined character of its own.

I totally agree that Thedas as shown so far lacks it's own personality, but in terms of presenting the worlds personality I think it's very heavily dependant on the visuals perhaps not colour and art style but art direction (though this could be my bias).

Personally whilst they chose to stylise their art more in DA2 they still didn't get an ownable style, to this I say there's a different between being able to look at something and say oh that's dragon age, and looking at something and saying ahh, that's dragon age. That needs some explaining, so I think of it this way and this isn't really a quality comparison, but anyway, a child scribbles on a page in red felt tip, you look at it and you see how the rest of the class made blue scribbles, it can be picked out as being that singular childs but that doesn't make it particularly speak with any voice it just so happens that it's different.

On the other hand, you look at something else Skyrim can be a good example I guess since we talk about it so much (dark souls is a better example but meh), in most ways Skyrim really does nothing to break from its obvious reliance on norse culture but in spite of or perhaps even because of this the world itself speaks pretty clearly, and its not a matter of style, there's no real red felt-tip to blue felt-tip difference between Skyrim, Witcher 2, or anything else that pushes for realism, it's just the overall way the world is presented and lives comfortably with itself, one good example of this is the way Skyrim basically has three or maybe more different voices going on, you have the voice of man whch is the main theme you see this throughout the majority of the game strong norse buildings and the like, you have the world of the Dwemer (TES Dwarves) who are similar in their use of a lot of stone and patternwork on that stone, quite drastically different though in their steampunk leanings, and massively more advanced scientifically than anyone else, thirdly and finally (for my point atleast there's many more aswell) you have the falmer, now everyone probably can visualise this when I mention them, darkness but with glowing blue mushrooms lining the wall pelvic bones lashed to wooden stakes marking some sort of territorial border, they feel so alien in comparison to the dwemer who feel so alien in comparison to the humans, and that would be my point.

I'll try to clarify because I'm not always good at getting my point across but essentially each of these entities have a place in the world and the world itself gives these entities a sense of voice a coherent culture something that makes them somehwat believable and at the same time makes them different and intriguing. Thats the world having a personality a world that informs the player of the world just in the way in which it is constructed through art and subsequently informed through experience of the world itself.

It's the same in the way dark souls is constructed or the witcher 2, witcher 2 does it in a different way instead of the world giving this fantastical voice to entities instead it's much more grounded the world lifts the peasants into your eyes and shoves them into the mud and forces you to take notice, lobinden is forgotten by the city walls and frankly its a bit of a craphole. As it should be being a tiny village noone cares about, this translates across the board, the world wherein the witcher lives is just a bit crapsacky, people crawl in the mud until they fall into a latrine and then they crawl out of effluent there.

Compare any of this to DA O or 2 and it's just lifeless, the elves have aravels (oh sure they have other bits of culture none of it visible all written down so that you have to read about it) yet they're a tiny part in O and for some reason even more reduced in 2 the dalish have no real voice their culture and place in the world is essentially downplayed and kicked to the side, as a people in DA2 they stand around at the base of a mountain with tiny caravans. In terms of experiencing their culture through my eyes that's all I can say about them. A people inclined towards mountains and wooden caravans. Origins suffers likewise, Lothering a backwater village without any real features seems too rich, too calm, too clean the people in it give you a different picture but the world itself just sort of shrugs its shoulders. One of the better ones in the series was to me Orzammar and the deep roads, Orzammar still suffers in a few ways in terms of scale and dressing, but the dwarves atleast had some bits of culture and voice in the city, best by far was bownammar it spoke of the glory and strength of the dwarves whilst also showing how much they've fallen as a race the gate stands broken unable to open the bridges spanning the gaps broken place overrun and filled with the corruption of the darkspawn, the large amount of crypts in that area adding to the stoicism of the dwarves their implacability versus their foe, even if they were driven back.

So there are good examples, but overall this is something to me which DA really suffers from, 2 was to me far worse in this regard than O Kirkwall just lacked any sense of personality to me, Hanged Man stands out but its far too little in what was supposed to be a major city, I mean with some of the local names like Hanged man and the bone pit it almost sets them up with some sort of sardonic humour but none of that spoke of itself through the world really which is a shame since sardonic and me are fast friends.

Anyway that was far, FAR too long so I don't begrudge anyone who doesn't read it.

[andar91]

Found this preview of KoA (it's the first 30 minutes of gameplay). I post it because it shows off a bit of the art style, and the commentators have commented more than once that they love the art style and vividness of the color.

[Das Tentakel]

Pzykozis,

Am I summarising your points right by saying that you don't see a cohesive and consistent vision of the world of DA in the two games?

[Pzykozis]

Das Tentakel wrote...

Pzykozis,

Am I summarising your points right by saying that you don't see a cohesive and consistent vision of the world of DA in the two games?

Well kinda, I just mean that essentially the world fails to assert itself. Witcher 2 and the 1st kinda have a crapsacky world but not really overblown, and the visuals represent this poor people grub in the mud and really the crap that rains over everything touches even kings and emperors, skyrim on the other hand has three main coherent strands in it.

DA just feels like a mish mash of unsolidified ideas and objects. It feels and in the end looks, like it doesn't really have much of a point in it. I'd say to a certain extent the two games I mentioned, have a story to tell in the visuals themselves and what they imply. DA just feels like things are put togehter. the sum is the parts, whereas the others are greater than their parts.

The Nords revel in their culture, The peasants live in the mud, blood, and muck, DA folks.. just live?

I sound overly critical when I really enjoyed both as games, I just feel the world overall lacks visual storytelling.

[LPPrince]

Pzykozis wrote...

Das Tentakel wrote...

Pzykozis,

Am I summarising your points right by saying that you don't see a cohesive and consistent vision of the world of DA in the two games?

Well kinda, I just mean that essentially the world fails to assert itself. Witcher 2 and the 1st kinda have a crapsacky world but not really overblown, and the visuals represent this poor people grub in the mud and really the crap that rains over everything touches even kings and emperors, skyrim on the other hand has three main coherent strands in it.

DA just feels like a mish mash of unsolidified ideas and objects. It feels and in the end looks, like it doesn't really have much of a point in it. I'd say to a certain extent the two games I mentioned, have a story to tell in the visuals themselves and what they imply. DA just feels like things are put togehter. the sum is the parts, whereas the others are greater than their parts.

The Nords revel in their culture, The peasants live in the mud, blood, and muck, DA folks.. just live?

I sound overly critical when I really enjoyed both as games, I just feel the world overall lacks visual storytelling.

And the visual storytelling you feel the games lack make you feel the NPCs and game world have no motivation for being who they are and doing what they do.

[Pzykozis]

LPPrince wrote...

Pzykozis wrote...

Das Tentakel wrote...

Pzykozis,

Am I summarising your points right by saying that you don't see a cohesive and consistent vision of the world of DA in the two games?

Well kinda, I just mean that essentially the world fails to assert itself. Witcher 2 and the 1st kinda have a crapsacky world but not really overblown, and the visuals represent this poor people grub in the mud and really the crap that rains over everything touches even kings and emperors, skyrim on the other hand has three main coherent strands in it.

DA just feels like a mish mash of unsolidified ideas and objects. It feels and in the end looks, like it doesn't really have much of a point in it. I'd say to a certain extent the two games I mentioned, have a story to tell in the visuals themselves and what they imply. DA just feels like things are put togehter. the sum is the parts, whereas the others are greater than their parts.

The Nords revel in their culture, The peasants live in the mud, blood, and muck, DA folks.. just live?

I sound overly critical when I really enjoyed both as games, I just feel the world overall lacks visual storytelling.

And the visual storytelling you feel the games lack make you feel the NPCs and game world have no motivation for being who they are and doing what they do.

In a way yes, or on the other hand their motivations and the like are apparent through the story but this makes them jar with the game world in that the game world itself doesn't seem to support such things. The dalish so love their culture. So much so that they keep it all hidden away, in safes, at the bottom of the ocean probably overlooked by angry elf (is there any other kind of elf) mermaids. The only sign of culture we see from the dalish gets the one involved EXILED from the clan. This all made sense to me. [/sarchasm]

The dalish to me don't speak to me as a people, they literally just sit there a the bottom of a mountain fondling rocks for all I can make out (no I know the whole marethari thing) but really they do just kinda sit their fondling the rocks looking like they've just randomly strolled together because they share an accent and a penchant for hating everyone.

Something that I don't understand about Kirkwall, it tries to be grim. What? it was a slave city? So what people who live there have a penchant for overly grim architecture reminding them of the past? Seems to me they'd celebrate their freedom a bit more masking the basically oppressive undertones with some sort of personality. Kirkwall failed at being oppressive because it didn't go far enough to present that but likewise it wouldn't have made sense even if it did because they're not slaves anymore and not-slaves tend to not to want to live in places that remind them of slavery and the fact that people died there all the time just next door, with your floors running with blood.

Ugh I feel a penchant for the surreal coming on. and I'm really being overly harsh.

The truth is I'm trying to pinpoint a single area in which I think the art didn't live up to the task, but whilst I can play the game fine and enjoy it when I analyse it I just don't know where to start it's all a mess to me so I end up flailing about making half baked remarks and comments on things. In truth it's not anywhere near as bad as I make it out to be the majority of games fail in art direction which is why you have such massive amounts of games that use the crutch of realism, they're not sure what to do so they just sort of copy paste real life. Which leads back to the idea of battlefield and why it's not as good looking (or perhaps better termed as it's not as powerful visually) as Dark souls. It simply lacks soul, (HAH!).

[LPPrince]

Seems to me there's a whole lot about the art style that you found problems with, but you just can't formulate in your mind exactly what those issues are.

That's fine. It might come to you later.

For me, it was the sheer dreariness. It wears thin, gets old, and gets boring.

I need to see life in my games. No matter how dark they are, I need light. It helps keep focus on the game world or items, and is internally refreshing.

Perhaps this is why I like KoA's style so much. It has its dark places, but it also has its bright places.

Reminds me of this image-

[Gibb_Shepard]

What time is the demo released? And is it exclusive to XBL?

[LPPrince]

The demo will come out on all platforms tomorrow.

Meaning in mere hours.

XBL is usually first, then PC, then PS3.

I'd stay tuned. Demo could release on your platform of choice before the sun rises for you.

[SkittlesKat96]

I'm not concerned about the art style in Dragon Age but it would be nice if they added a little more vibrance.

And vibrance isn't necessarily a bad thing in moderation...just adding things like lush grassy fields and more stunning environments is still vibrancy I think.

That said I was looking at the engine for DA 2 the other day and I've been having serious thoughts about the idea of Bioware getting a new or updated game engine. Just a possibility, it might be too impractical to do at the moment.

[LPPrince]

There's a good word. Lush. Yes to lush green fields, meadows, and the like.

[LPPrince]

For those who don't already know, the demo is out. Play it and then come back here.

I'm not done with it yet(there's a 45 minute timer on the demo but it stops during convos and menus), but I can say for sure-

Lush, vibrance, its all in KoA. DA needs this.