410 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Teddie Sage wrote...

Dragon Age II's default storyline was set in stone if you didn't import anything.
The Cousland character is their canon choice.

Umm, okay...

So?

[jbrand2002uk]

His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

[NedPepper]

The response to Mass Effect 3 has suddenly made Dragon Age the darling again. In a weird way...I'm kind of pleased Dragon Age isn't the ugly step sister anymore. Now for some new DLC please....(I know, it's never happening.)

[Demx]

nedpepper wrote...

The response to Mass Effect 3 has suddenly made Dragon Age the darling again. In a weird way...I'm kind of pleased Dragon Age isn't the ugly step sister anymore. Now for some new DLC please....(I know, it's never happening.)

That's not reassuring at all. I'd rather have one popular IP from Bioware receive disapproval from a lot of people and be some weird ass fluke for one of their games, then for it to turn into that.

[Fast Jimmy]

jbrand2002uk wrote...

His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

This is true, every line was written, obviously. But DA2 puts you in a fence about which lines you choose, given your personality. If your character is a sarcastic personality, over 75% of the time, you are going to choose the sarcastic response. Which means your sarcastic player will almost always say the sarcastic line, since choosing other lines makes the response seem incongruent with the tone of the response. 

So while I could mix and match answers based upon how I feel or how I see my player, instead I'm watching Green/Purple/Red Hawke in their story. I'm following the Green/Purple/Red scripts, not making my choices my own. 

[karushna5]

No actually that I would disagree with Fast Jimmy. Even when I play as a personality type I mix and match. And boy it opens the character up. When Hawke has a really good reason to be angry I play angry even as a miss goody two shoes.

That is why people don't like the system! They think it pigeons hole them. No wonder. That would be a boring experience choosing the same thing each time if you don't mix it up. It makes perfect sense for the character and it works. I find sarcastic angry dude best of all. I adore the dialogue system and find it has more different things to say then in DAO because I know you pick what fits in your head not the color coded thing.

For this reason I like the dialogue system in DAII much better then in say ME which also give you three options but the middle option is more nuetral than having a third twist I love. Why don't people feel pigeonholed in those games makes me wonder.

[HiroVoid]

nedpepper wrote...

The response to Mass Effect 3 has suddenly made Dragon Age the darling again. In a weird way...I'm kind of pleased Dragon Age isn't the ugly step sister anymore. Now for some new DLC please....(I know, it's never happening.)

I'm pretty sure Mass Effect's still the darling franchise(well, after SWTOR anyway.).  People may dislike the ME3 endings, but most people disliked various parts of DA2.

[Sylvius the Mad]

jbrand2002uk wrote...

His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

The writer's intent doesn't matter.  The writer's intent isn't in the game.  It demonstrably has no effect at all.

If I choose a line for reason X rather than reason Y, that changes who that particular Warden is.  His motives are different.  It's simply nonsensical to say that BioWare controls that because then the player wouldn't have any justification for choosing any option over any other.

That the player can choose demonstrates that the player is the one who determines the Warden's personality.

With Hawke, though, the player cannot know with any confidence why Hawke made any decision, because his behaviour minutes or hours or days from now might contradict any explanation you might construct.  In DAO, you can prevent that from happening by not choosing the options that would break your Warden's character, but in DA2 you're not allowed to choose dialogue options at all.  The player has no idea what Hawke will say or, in many cases, how Hawke will say it.  As such, character-breaking behaviour can spring from nowhere, surprising the player and ruining his game.

In DAO, I know exactly why the Warden does anything (outside of cutscenes).  In DA2, Hawke's motives are a complete mystery to me.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 10 mars 2012 - 07:42 .

[TEWR]

jbrand2002uk wrote...

His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

The Warden is my Warden. Bioware may have written all the replies and choices, but that doesn't make the Warden Bioware's. All that means is that I'm limited in how I make my Warden by what they gave me.

They wrote the replies. For the most part they didn't dictate how my Warden acts, how he thinks, how he feels, how he even fights. That is up to me, the player.

As I said on the previous page, all Bioware protagonists are limiting somehow. But it's about how much freedom to roleplay our characters we're given that determines whether they're our characters or if they're Bioware's.

IMO, mind you.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 10 mars 2012 - 08:09 .

[Das Tentakel]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

As I said on the previous page, all Bioware protagonists are limiting somehow. But it's about how much freedom to roleplay our characters we're given that determines whether they're our characters or if they're Bioware's.

IMO, mind you.

Western narrative RPG's (Bioware's games, The Witcher, but also Bethesda, though story is less important in their games) give you a 'bandwith' to customize your gameplay and main character. In The Witcher games, your character is very much fixed, far more than in Bioware's RPG's, but you can still create your own 'variant' of Geralt, within certain limits. What I found bothersome in DA2, more so in my 2nd attempt (in which I succeeded in punching through most of the content, no thanks to repetitive combat and awful fetch quests), is that the bandwith is simultaneously very narrow and very  inconsistent.
The narrowness comes from the fact that there appear to be few 'decision nodes' where you can define your character one way or the other - **** happens anyway.  Often, control is taken from you in the form of cut scenes, where usually these are simply rewards for reaching a certain point or accomplishing something (for instance, the cinematics when you kill the Archdemon in DA:O). The inconsistency derives to a large degree from very bad paraphrasing in the dialog wheel, and options that frequently don't feel logical or natural.

All these things do occur in other RPG's, but the frequency and obviousness of it in DA2 is galling. In the middle parts of the game I found myself frequently appreciating the writing and voice acting, only to get really annoyed the next moment because of these issues.

As an aside, people may be interested in the Extra Credits episodes dealing with the differences between 'western' RPG's and JRPG's. The second installment has some nice insights that I feel are relevant to this particular subject...

Link: penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/western-japanese-rpgs-part-2

[Mr Fixit]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

If your character is a sarcastic personality, over 75% of the time, you are going to choose the sarcastic response. Which means your sarcastic player will almost always say the sarcastic line, since choosing other lines makes the response seem incongruent with the tone of the response. 

So while I could mix and match answers based upon how I feel or how I see my player, instead I'm watching Green/Purple/Red Hawke in their story. I'm following the Green/Purple/Red scripts, not making my choices my own. 

With this I gotta agree. Although I am in principle OK with voiced protagonists, dialogue system, as implemented in DA2, is extremely problematic. In DA:O, since the Warden's tone was pretty much left to your interpretation, I had a much greater freedom in choosing the wanted reply. In DA2, with its horrendous conflation of intent and tone, I found myself picking blue/purple/red instead of actual sentences.

Someone somewhere said, and I agree wholeheartedly, that, unless you give us way more than 3 dialogue options, the only way for a voiced protagonist to work properly is to flesh him out more, to make him a fixed character like Shepard or Geralt (didn't play Witcher, but that's my understanding). I know that would upset some people even more, but hey, I'm just saying

Modifié par Mr Fixit, 10 mars 2012 - 10:24 .

[jbrand2002uk]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

jbrand2002uk wrote...

His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

The writer's intent doesn't matter.  The writer's intent isn't in the game.  It demonstrably has no effect at all.

If I choose a line for reason X rather than reason Y, that changes who that particular Warden is.  His motives are different.  It's simply nonsensical to say that BioWare controls that because then the player wouldn't have any justification for choosing any option over any other.

That the player can choose demonstrates that the player is the one who determines the Warden's personality.

With Hawke, though, the player cannot know with any confidence why Hawke made any decision, because his behaviour minutes or hours or days from now might contradict any explanation you might construct.  In DAO, you can prevent that from happening by not choosing the options that would break your Warden's character, but in DA2 you're not allowed to choose dialogue options at all.  The player has no idea what Hawke will say or, in many cases, how Hawke will say it.  As such, character-breaking behaviour can spring from nowhere, surprising the player and ruining his game.

In DAO, I know exactly why the Warden does anything (outside of cutscenes).  In DA2, Hawke's motives are a complete mystery to me.

Actually the writers intent is very evident in the game through the tone and pacing of the responses of the NPC's and companions to each of the dialogue options you choose during the recording of each of the characters lines the voice actors are coached to say each line in a particular tone with a specific pace because the writer has already envisioned the tone and pace of "The Wardens" line to which the NPC or Companion is responding.

So to say the writers intent is not important makes no sense at all because the whole script for the story revolves around the writers intent, to deny the writers intent is to deny the whole story.

While I can see where etheral is coming from in that the infinate number of permutations make each "Warden" unique each is still not "Our Warden" as its not us that defines the boundries but BW that does hence it is still "their Warden"

As for the occasional disjointedness in DA2 where for example you pick the "red angry" line only to hear it in a snarky tone that is down to the stacking system used for the dialogue many players struggle to get their head round this concept and I'm not sure even the staff at BW fully grasp it in all its complexity but in laymans terms during each act if you repeatedly pick snarky answers then Hawke's personality is set to snarky until the end of that act where it is reset.

So lets say in the start of Act 2 the first 10 answers you give are the snarky ones they stack up to make your Hawkes personallity "Snarky" and for the 11th answer you pick the "Red Angry" option because the previous 10 answers stacked up your personallity is still "snarky" Hawke resulting in a angry line said snarkily its the case of an idea that was good on paper but not implemented very well 

[Sylvius the Mad]

jbrand2002uk wrote...

Actually the writers intent is very evident in the game through the tone and pacing of the responses of the NPC's and companions to each of the dialogue options you choose during the recording of each of the characters lines the voice actors are coached to say each line in a particular tone with a specific pace because the writer has already envisioned the tone and pace of "The Wardens" line to which the NPC or Companion is responding.

That's not what I said.  That you or I can infer the writer's intent is irrelevant, as we need not be bound by.  That content isn't actually in the game, and as such we can ignore it without the game breaking our character.

I say the writer's intent doesn't matter not not because the writer didn't have a clear intent, and not because I can't perceive that intent.  I saw the writer's intent doesn't matter because the writer's intent doesn't matter.  You're taking that mean something somewhat broader, and that's not what I'm saying.

So to say the writers intent is not important makes no sense at all because the whole script for the story revolves around the writers intent, to deny the writers intent is to deny the whole story.

I deny that the story comprises anything beyond the explicit content.  The writer's intent isn't explicit.  The writer's intent in implicit content, and I don't see why every player should be foreced to acknowledge it.

While I can see where etheral is coming from in that the infinate number of permutations make each "Warden" unique each is still not "Our Warden" as its not us that defines the boundries but BW that does hence it is still "their Warden"

Really?  No matter how broad those boundaires?  That position seems arbitrary.

As for the occasional disjointedness in DA2 where for example you pick the "red angry" line only to hear it in a snarky tone that is down to the stacking system used for the dialogue many players struggle to get their head round this concept and I'm not sure even the staff at BW fully grasp it in all its complexity but in laymans terms during each act if you repeatedly pick snarky answers then Hawke's personality is set to snarky until the end of that act where it is reset.

So lets say in the start of Act 2 the first 10 answers you give are the snarky ones they stack up to make your Hawkes personallity "Snarky" and for the 11th answer you pick the "Red Angry" option because the previous 10 answers stacked up your personallity is still "snarky" Hawke resulting in a angry line said snarkily its the case of an idea that was good on paper but not implemented very well 

It was far worse that n that.  One example I complained specifically about here on BSN had to do with some slavers in Darktown.

After making a deal with the slavers, the lead slaver said, "Can I go now?"  I had two options.  One paraphrase said "No", with the attack icon, while the other said "Yes," with the choice icon (the arrows).

I chose Yes, and I got Hawke behaviour that made no sense at all.;  What should I have expected from the "Yes" choice?  Based on what I've described, what is Hawke going to do when I choose "Yes"?

[Shadowlit_Rogue]

Sylvius is right. The writer's intent doesn't matter, because the writer's intent with regards to the dialogue choices isn't explicitly communicated to the player. Sure, you can guess, but there's nothing aside from your own interpretation telling you that a "snarky" response is indeed snarky.

With Hawke, on the other hand, there's no room for interpretation of any kind. No means yes, and yes means kill everything.

[Teddie Sage]

jbrand2002uk wrote...

His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

+ 1

[Stiler]

For me the reason why I didn't enjoy DAII are:

1. Compared to DA:O, DAII just lacked any kind of "epic" scope or feeling of adventure.

2. The characters just didn't stand out to me like DA:O. I was a HUGE fan of both Alistair and Morrigan in DA, their characters were very well done, especially as you peeled off the outer layers and got them to open up. I just didn't find any characters in DAII that had that depth to them/enjoyment compared to those aside from Varlric, I just didn't find them nearly as interesting.

3. The re-use of textures. Not only did DAII lose the "epic" scope that DA:O had, but you would think that having it be based mostly in Kirkwall, that surely they could make the city have unique looks, and spend more them fleshing it out, since ithey don't have to worry about doing the art assests and things for a lot of other locations? However nope, they skimped on those big time. The city lacked any "atmosphere" to it really, it just felt EXTREMELY generic to me. Along with the reused dungeons and things.

4. Combat. I loved DA:O's combat, being able to pause and plan what you wanted your characters to do for that situation you were in. Where you wanted to aoe, where you wanted to defend, using the terrain to bottleneck a group of enemies/spring a trap.

In DAII this was thrown out of the bloody window in favor not of the quick more "action" combat, I could have handled that, it was the stupid stupid stupid "spawn enemies from nowehre" that broke combat for me.

You can't plan anything, or make good use of tactics when enemies are constantly SPAWNING FROM THIN AIR.

This destroyed the entire feeling of combat for me compared to DA:O.

5. Choices, or the lack thereof. In DA:O the game had a lot more variety and choices. What race did you want to be? How did you want to build your party? What did you want to use them with?

You could take Morrigan, make her into an offhealer, or go full damage. You could take Alistar, make him super tanky, or go more dps.

In DA:II, you want to make your sister (who's a mage) into more of a healer? Tough freaking luck! She gets a single tiny uber-useless heal that is almost pointless to take unless you want to play on super casual difficulty. You want good healing? HEre, only use anders! Oh you don't like Anders? You wnat to use another character because you like them better? Nope, not your choice anymore.

I can understand wanting to give the character a "voice" in the game, I actually LIKE characters having a voice. however I don't get why you couldn't give him a voice, but still give us the ability to choose different races/beginnings? I don't want to play as generic human male in a world filled with many other races.

All in all the game just lost it's touch for me, it lost the variety, the choices, the tactical combat, interesting characters.

I could have did with the quicker action combat (I actually like action combat games) and the voice acting for your character (which I prefer) however I can't do without taking choices and variety from the player in an rpg, as that is one of the main points of an rpg in the first place, to me at least.

[jbrand2002uk]

Shadowlit_Rogue wrote...

Sylvius is right. The writer's intent doesn't matter, because the writer's intent with regards to the dialogue choices isn't explicitly communicated to the player. Sure, you can guess, but there's nothing aside from your own interpretation telling you that a "snarky" response is indeed snarky.

With Hawke, on the other hand, there's no room for interpretation of any kind. No means yes, and yes means kill everything.

I'd respectfully disagree the response of the NPC/Companion tells you exactly the tone and intent of the dialogue choice you just made, For example one of my Wardens prefered peaceful soloutions but was happy to fight if thats what it took on several occassions i picked my choice and evnvisioned that my Warden being the sort of guy he was delivered his answer in a calm,polite yet firm way only for the Companion/NPC's response to be bark, bark, bark, you cheeky sod how dare you etc, and voila instant immersion breaker.

Why ?, because no matter how many variations i can muster in my head on how my Warden delivered that line the writer at BW had already decided that the NPC/Companion i replied to would take said reply as rude/cheeky/offensive etc.

You may well decide in your head that you pick dialogue option 1 and deliver it in tone A with intent B however your apparent choice is rendered null and void because the scriptwriter at BW had already decided that if Dialogue option 1 was picked it will in fact be delivered in tone D with intention F and the NPC/Companions response is composed accordingly.

The intent is rather obvious in DAO they just decided to make it blatantly obvious in DA2 by encrusting it in flashing neons saying hello hello wooga wooga in the form of colour coded symbols in the dialogue wheel. 
However I do agree the Stacking system does make a dogs dinner of it if your anything other than mr consistant with your intention choices 

[Nighteye2]

jbrand2002uk wrote...
His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

That may be, but even so you still have a choice - unlike DA2, where you have to pick from paraphrases and get suprised by the line 'your' character speaks based on your 'choice'. Which isn't much of a choice at all without being able to know exactly what you're choosing between.

Sure, you're still limited to the options Bioware wrote into the game - but at least with DA:O's full-text options, you knew exactly what words your character would say.

[jbrand2002uk]

Nighteye2 wrote...

jbrand2002uk wrote...
His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

That may be, but even so you still have a choice - unlike DA2, where you have to pick from paraphrases and get suprised by the line 'your' character speaks based on your 'choice'. Which isn't much of a choice at all without being able to know exactly what you're choosing between.

Sure, you're still limited to the options Bioware wrote into the game - but at least with DA:O's full-text options, you knew exactly what words your character would say.

Knowing what to say is one thing but its not nearly as important as how you say it and in DAO that is beyond your control because the Companions?NPC's responses to your choices were keyed to those chocies being delivered in a specific tone with a specific intent.

[seraphymon]

jbrand2002uk wrote...
Knowing what to say is one thing but its not nearly as important as how you say it and in DAO that is beyond your control because the Companions?NPC's responses to your choices were keyed to those chocies being delivered in a specific tone with a specific intent.

I argue its more important than how you say it. Cause you know exactly what your saying. The misunderstandings for lack of tone (DAO) or saying the wrong things (DA2)  will always be present to someone. If tone was more important online chat  would be less understood between people than it is now. Since in online chat you cannot express tone. That is if one decides not to pay attention to how the conversation is going and how things are worded. For example if one decides to ignore or misses an ! at the end of a sentence, and wonders why the recipient reacts to someone shouting.

in DAO i did not have any problems where someone took someone took something the  wrong way just cause it may have been a different tone. I could see how the tone  would be most of the time, by paying attention to the convos. But when you dont know the words that will come out.  Tone works the same way, such as expressing anger, you may think based on the stupid paraprhase your syaing something angry in a positive way, until the words atually come and your line is actually a big negative.

[TEWR]

Knowing what to say is one thing but its not nearly as important as how you say it and in DAO that is beyond your control because the Companions?NPC's responses to your choices were keyed to those chocies being delivered in a specific tone with a specific intent.

So what? It's one or the other? Tone or full line?

I'd rather have both. It'd make a voiced protagonist better, if only slightly. It would be a step towards fixing the dialogue system and the protagonist as a whole.

[Remmirath]

I don't hate Dragon Age II. I dislike many things about it. In many ways, I hate what it represents - a general shift in how RPGs have been made lately into a style that I personally dislike - but I did enjoy it while playing it, despite some bouts of frustration. 

My primary reasons for this dislike: 

1: The voiced protagonist and the dialogue wheel. These two seem to come in a package, so I'm putting them in the same point. I do not like having to have my character sound a certain way, as no matter how good the voice acting is it does not work with all character concepts and severely limits (as in, destroys) replayability to me because I don't want my characters to sound like the same person. 
On top of that, having voice acting takes away a lot of roleplaying opportunity. Yes, you can choose the angry/peaceful/sarcastic responses, but I would much rather have one line I could interpret in any of those three ways. Voice acting is a large part of acting in general, and the subtext that you hear in it is a huge part of defining a character - which means that having the PC be voice acted takes away a lot of character development from the player, which I think should be the last thing one wants to do in an RPG. 

2: The combat. Huge hit point totals and fights being long because of that is not the way to enjoyable combat for me, I find the speed of it annoying, and there are a lot of combat mechanics I just dislike to it (too much stunning, too much zipping around the battlefield, et cetera). Now, I was already not overly fond of DA:O's combat system (activated abilities are not really my thing), but I thought it was actually quite a nice example of that style - my favourite example of it, in fact - and I did enjoy it. DA II, however, I just felt like I was slogging through all the combat because it wasn't interesting to me. 
The numbers also didn't really make much sense to me. I would have much preferred it if they kept things the same as in DA:O - it is, to me, very annoying that in the first game you might have a defense score of something like 110, but in the second it'll more like 1100. Numbers that huge just feel meaningless to me. 

3: The NPCs and their dialogue. Yeah, the few conversations they had were pretty nice, but I really am not a fan of them hardly ever talking to you, especially not only when a mission for it comes up. The banters were interesting, although I personally actually find it quite annoying that Hawke participates in them, because you can't choose what your character is saying (yeah, a lot of my complaints with DA II come down to not having enough choice about your character). I do realise that the 'laundry list' dialogue style has some problems, but I personally prefer its problems to the DA II style dialogue's problems. 

4: Replayability. The voice, as mentioned above, is enough to sink it on that for me, but even beyond that it wouldn't have very much to me - because your character's family is always there and are always the same people, and because there is really not much variance in the ending. Now, a lack of replayability in itself is not enough to make me dislike a game. For me, Planescape: Torment has almost none, and it's still one of my favourite games (although that does push it below all the others that -do- have more replayability). It is a definite negative, however. 

5: Changes in style. By this I am referring to the elves, the Darkspawn, and the Qunari in that order. I consider the elves to be by far the worst, because there's a reasonably good chance (and for me it was the case) that your character in DA:O was an elf, and so that just seems to make it even odder that they look completely different now. I would never have been thrilled with the new elf design, even if it had been in place in the beginning, but if it had been there in DA:O I wouldn't mind it so much - what I mind the most is that it changed. 
The Darkspawn, well, you don't see 'em much in DA II, but to me they mostly just look silly now. The ogre is a wash, but all the others I think looked much more intimidating in DA:O (with the exception of one particular character in Legacy). 
The Qunari I don't mind all that much, although I did prefer how they were in DA:O - but Sten was the only one who was seen all that much in DA:O, and I'm willing to believe that most of them were different. 

6: Friendship/rivalry. I far prefer like/dislike. I really would like the NPCs to be able to actually hate my character. Speaking of that, the fact that Bethany always starts out at friendship and Carver at rivalry also annoys me - I'd really like to be able to choose which sibling my character gets along better with. 

[Edit] 7: I don't know how I almost forgot this - not being able to change the NPC companion's equipment! That was actually one of the things that annoyed me the most while I was playing, second only to the voice. Not being able to change the armour was really, really annoying, especially considering the ten year span. It's another thing that hurts replayability for me, too, because I don't want the NPCs to look the same every time through - it makes it feel more like they're the same version of the characters as they were for my last PC, if that makes sense. 
It was also another way it was harder to change the function the NPCs served in the party. I was also annoyed that you can't change what weapons they used (as in, category of weapons). I'd to be able to replay with Aveline using two-handed weapons and Fenris sword-and-shield, for example. 

[Edit] 8: I also forgot the restricting weapons bit. I probably forgot these because I haven't actually played in a while. Yeah, I don't like that only certain classes can use certain weapons. Certainly I would think a warrior would be able to use all weapons, and I miss my longsword-using rogues as well as my bow-using warriors. 

The recycled maps did bug me as well, but honestly, not compared to those other things. 

jbrand2002uk wrote...

Knowing what to say is one thing but its not nearly as important as how you say it and in DAO that is beyond your control because the Companions?NPC's responses to your choices were keyed to those chocies being delivered in a specific tone with a specific intent.

It's completely beyond your control in DA II, because you hear it being said. In DA:O, it is not. Yes, the NPCs responses had to assume a certain thing, but have you never had somebody misinterpret what you were trying to say or how you were saying it? I certainly have. There is still plenty of room to imagine it. 

Even within the same basic intent there are many different ways you can say something. The exact way people talk and the inflection with which they say things is a very large part of how character is perceived, and the reason I think I'll always dislike the voiced PC style is that it takes the option of imagining something different away from you. 

And yes, obviously there have to be some limitations with a computer game. You can't code a game such that anything is possible. However, I do firmly believe that the unvoiced lines of text have -far- more roleplaying room to them than the snippets and the voiced lines. 

Modifié par Halae Dral, 12 mars 2012 - 01:23 .

[Pasquale1234]

jbrand2002uk wrote...

Knowing what to say is one thing but its not nearly as important as how you say it and in DAO that is beyond your control because the Companions?NPC's responses to your choices were keyed to those chocies being delivered in a specific tone with a specific intent.

Actually it's entirely within your control, because DAO did not limit you in the same ways that DA2 did.

IRL, people do not always say what they mean / mean what they say, and are sometimes misunderstood / misinterpreted.  Recipients of communication process whatever they hear (or what they think they heard) through their own filters, based on their own values, motivations, and agendas.  DAO provided you with a much better way to model these things in your role-playing.

Selecting a line of dialogue in DAO was essentially a way to choose how you wanted the NPC (and game) to react - no more and no less.  The actual dialogue and tone used by the Warden is entirely up to the player - and that freedom not only allowed you much greater latitude in defining the character, motivations, personality, etc., of the Warden, but also gave you some latitude to refine the personalities of the companions.  You can, for example, have NPCs react inappropriately at times, if you so choose.... because their reaction is based on the line you select, which may or may not reflect the actual dialogue or tone the Warden delivered.

The writer's intent is irrelevant - the only thing the player is dealing with is actual game content, and DAO's content allowed much greater flexibility in character definition and role-playing than DA2's.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Teddie Sage wrote...

jbrand2002uk wrote...

His whole point is that every line of dialogue for "the Warden" was written in a specific way with a specific intent and the NPC's corresponding replys were written based on those intentions, you can rejig it in your head till your blue in the face but it does not change the scriptwriters intent, therefore "the Warden" isnt "Your Warden" but Bioware's, you as the player are simply being given the choice of picking line A B C D etc nothing more.

+ 1

Okay, first, I disagree with jbrand's reasoning.  The stuff he says after "therefore" doesn't follow from the stuff he says before "therefore".

And I don't see why the NPC reactions matter at all.  In fact, that the NPC reactions don't change is why I think the NPCs are not the same from playthrough to playthrough.

[Zetheria Tabris]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

All I really want to know is how Fenris can be called something akin to Final Fantasy.

I don't know if someone has answered this, but Fenris looks and acts like those broody characters from anime or JRPGs like Final Fantasy. If you look at this video of Final Fantasy XIV Online at 7:14, you'll see an elf that looks just like him. http://angryjoeshow....-games-of-2010/