41 réponses à ce sujet

[Marillian]

So there I was, chatting with Wynne in the camp. (This was just after finished 'Broken Circle'.)

I was trying to get her to teach me spirit healer so I could specialize my mage. (I now know you gotto get the book.) So I chatted and chatted and then the weirdest thing happened. My line was something like this:

"Its been a while since I left the tower..."

and she answers: 

"Yes its been almost a year, has it not..."

This is the second line Ive heard ingame that broke my immersion greatly. The first was Isolde taking about some Urn like I was already supposed to know about it.

Anyone had similar experiences, where a character says something that makes you go "..what?"

[Herr Uhl]

Time progression is a weak point in the game. And Isolde takes for granted that the urn is common knowledge.

[Recidiva]

I never got Wynne to teach me spirit healer. I eventually bought a book. If you figure it out, let me know.



I didn't get that one.

[Thomas9321]

I don't understand how this break immersion. The events of Dragon Age take place over the course of 1-2 years, its just an off hand comment telling you time has passed. Also, the Urn of Sacred Ashes is a very well known legend. Several characters mention it who you cant meet and your character would likely have heard of it (even if you had not).

[AtreiyaN7]

Yes, if you go to Lothering, you run into that knight who's looking for the Urn - so on that point, you're exposed to it pretty early on.

[Xeyska]

Wynne can't teach Spirit Healer, the only way to get it is from the manual in Denerim.

[Nathair Nimheil]

I don't understand how this break immersion. The events of Dragon Age take place over the course of 1-2 years

Because there's nothing else that "seems" like years are passing. Most of the other indicators make it seem like days or maybe weeks passing. Without some sort of calendar the sudden and contradictory indicators are very jarring.

[Nathair Nimheil]

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Modifié par Nathair Nimheil, 29 novembre 2009 - 08:00 .

[Seagloom]

It's true, there is no handy indicator of time passing as you adventure, but I do believe Wynne's comment makes some sense when you meet Dagna in Orzammar. If you talk to her again before leaving for the Tower she comments that it takes over two weeks to get there from the city, and Orzammar, map wise, is relatively close to the Circle's tower.

Considering a total lack of teleporation magic and speedy vehicles in Thedas, all that tromping about the map during your journeys could easily take over a year, and that's if you do everything efficiently without backtracking too often to resolve quests.

Too bad DA has no clock like BG and NWN did.

Modifié par Seagloom, 29 novembre 2009 - 08:03 .

[Thomas9321]

Nathair Nimheil wrote...

I don't understand how this break immersion. The events of Dragon Age take place over the course of 1-2 years

Because there's nothing else that "seems" like years are passing. Most of the other indicators make it seem like days or maybe weeks passing. Without some sort of calendar the sudden and contradictory indicators are very jarring.

I very much see your point here. I would really enjoy a count of how many day's you've been out doing your Grey Warden 'thang'. Wynne's comment is less jarring if you do the Circle Tower last. However, directly after Ostagar on the other hand, it does shatter immersion like you said.

Modifié par Thomas9321, 29 novembre 2009 - 08:08 .

[Ulyn]

"Years" haven't passed, the idea is that "a year" has. It didn't 'break immersion for me,' so much as make me go "hm, 'spose." You've been tromping around the country on foot, slaying, camping and whatnot; you don't see the times the bridge was washed out and the group had to stay at some inn for a few weeks or when when everybody wastes a day looking for Sten's lost contact lens.

[Vormaerin]

They use fuzzy time rather than BG style calendars because otherwise they'd have to put time limits on various quests and you'd have lots of people getting mad when the timer ran out and they lost and had to restart.

[The Angry One]

Vormaerin wrote...

They use fuzzy time rather than BG style calendars because otherwise they'd have to put time limits on various quests and you'd have lots of people getting mad when the timer ran out and they lost and had to restart.

Not really, plenty of games have clocks with quest givers who don't mind that you took 3 years to kill the rats in their basement.
Even so, what's wrong with time limits? I miss the days when certain quests had you watching the clock.

[Dakota Strider]

Considering the map, and how often you travel over it (and under it, in the Deep Roads), quite a bit of time is consumed by just travelling. I have not seen any reference to distance in the game, except a couple where it mentions the amount of time to travel.



Dagna says that it would probably take 2 1/2 weeks to make it from Ozammar to the Circle Tower and back, I believe.



Before the final battle, it was stated that it would take 2 days, forced march to make it from Redcliffe to Denerim.



Now, it seems all horses in the world are in Orlais, so unless you are going by ox cart or boat, you are on foot. A good day's travel would be between 20-30 miles. A forced march, you may get to 40 miles, perhaps 50 at the very most, but would not be able to do that for more than a day or two.



And the terrain is not all flat...seems to be very hilly, with more than a few mountains to traverse. I think that most points on the map that are next to each other, would take at least a week, if not more to travel between. A trip from Denerim to Ozammar could possibly take a month.



In my mind, I was thinking the campaign could easily go more than 6 months, but I am not surprised to hear it may be 1-2 years. Even with magical healing, I doubt that any character's body could take the constant punishment of non-stop travelling and fighting, and would need time to recover. Not to mention, you go from level 1 adventurers to surpass level 20. That sort of thing takes time.



Other ways to consider time is passing quickly....all the books you have supposedly read. While they are condensed to just a few paragraphs in the codex/journal, your character likely had to spend a lot of time reading the book to find those few useful paragraphs.

[Nathair Nimheil]

Other ways to consider time is passing quickly....all the books you have supposedly read. While they are condensed to just a few paragraphs in the codex/journal, your character likely had to spend a lot of time reading the book to find those few useful paragraphs.

On the other hand people will begin a conversation in camp, then hike for a month, have a battle, hike for a month and then pick the conversation back up again as if it were later that evening or perhaps the next day.

I find it jarring.

[Marillian]

The problem I had with Isolde and the Urn was on my first playthrough. I left Lothering without ever entering the chantry there, so I'd never heard anything about the Urn before Isolde said "Ze urn of zecred ashiz".



When people mention how much time it takes form A to B I think "oh thats nice", but there is no way Im going to track my movement in excel based on that information.



It was also weird Wynne said it, because I still have Redcliffe, Orzamar, Brecillian Forest and the Urn left. ( And a bunch of sidequest. ) I basicly went to the tower first to make sure Wynne didnt "waste her talents" without my guidance, so to speak. If I did Broken Circle last I probably would not mind as much.

[apantoliani]

I really can't remember where I saw it I *think* it was on the bonus material from the making of DVD (PC Collectors Edition) that 2-3 years pass start to finish in the game, depending on what all you do in Ferelden. Sounded plausible to me.

[KalosCast]

I've heard that there's a year between getting recruited and the battle at Ostagar. But even that doesn't really work in some of the origin stories.

[LadyRae9]

As I talked to various people, they mention other origins in their conversations, most indicating that the events took place about a year ago, regardless of how it takes me to get to them.

[Gilead26]

one good time indicator is in the dwarf noble origin, if you are male you can have sex with a noble hunter the night before you are betrayed by behlen. When you come back to Orzrammar you find out that you now have a son, who it's implied is at least 2 or 3 months old. So that's a minimum of 1 year (assuming dwarf babies gestate on a similar time frame as human ones)

[Haasth]

So if noone has said this yet. I am pretty sure Wynne does NOT teach Spirit Healing. I've busted my ass of trying to make her teach me, but nada. After rechecking nothing confirms she actually does teach it. The book is the only way. Just sayin'.

[katramye]

Somehow I encountered this conversation very early on, before having done much traveling at all. It completely broke the immersion for me. Unless it took my mage and Duncan 6+ months to travel from the Tower down to Ostegar, I could see no way a year had passed at the point Wynne said this to my character.



It seemed a strange line, in any case. It would have been so easy to make it vague.

[kormesios]

Seagloom wrote...

It's true, there is no handy indicator of time passing as you adventure, but I do believe Wynne's comment makes some sense when you meet Dagna in Orzammar. If you talk to her again before leaving for the Tower she comments that it takes over two weeks to get there from the city, and Orzammar, map wise, is relatively close to the Circle's tower.

Considering a total lack of teleporation magic and speedy vehicles in Thedas, all that tromping about the map during your journeys could easily take over a year, and that's if you do everything efficiently without backtracking too often to resolve quests.

Too bad DA has no clock like BG and NWN did.

On the other hand, Redcliffe to the circle tower supposedly takes a day.  Since there's no time, developers haven't had to do anything  except make up a time that suits the dialogue.

The time flow is jarringly inconsistent when you start to pay attention, with armies raised and battles fought in relatively short periods of game time (as evidenced by rumors and cut scenes).  While "two days" is supposed to be enough to do the entire anvil part of the Orazammar quest.

In game clocks seem to have been sacrificed mostly to avoid inconsistencies like this, with the result that the inconsistencies are now worse, but a little easier to tune out.  Personally, I'd prefer a clock but it doesn't sem like anyone's going back to implement one.

[KalosCast]

If you pay attention it's a day to the mage tower BY BOAT, a form of travel that bandits are unlikely to ambush you on and was generally much much much much faster than travel by land.



Not to mention, these armies aren't hard at all to actually raise. Essentially all members of a Dalish clan are trained to be able to defend themselves, with the hunters making up a large number of the clan population and double as soldiers and guards for their clans. Each of the noble houses also has their own standing armies, and are just going to hold onto them as long as they can get away with it in order to maintain their own power base, but have difficulty refusing the king's orders. Mages and golems, well... you don't get many of them because they don't have the proper amount of time to raise a real army. Redcliffe is both a primarily mercenary force, according to your camp representative and therefore can be raised quickly assuming Eamon's got the cash for it and the fact that Duncan mentions that Redcliffe troops could be here quickly implies that he already had a standing army in the wings.

[Heldenbrand]

Armies are always hard to raise, it's more than just strapping on armor and girding on your weapon. You have to stock up supplies, you have to manage the separate armies and integrate them into a cohesive force (certainly not even easy with humans, just imagine how hard it is now to get a modern coalition force working together). You have to establish supply lines, transport troops, skirmish with scouts and play the overall battlefield to face the enemy on your terms.



In medieval times, it was severely complicated by the fact they didn't have a modern ability to preserve food. This required them to scavenge for food on the field, often at the expense of local peasants. This made it nearly impossible to campaign against your enemy during the winter, establishing campaign season between spring and fall when food was more readily available. Darkspawn may not need this since they tend to feed on flesh, but I bet that they can still die from exposure.



Fighting a war in that level of technology isn't nearly as easy as we see it today, especially when you consider that pressing hard you can march an army about 10-25 miles a day. On open ground, without the need to scavenge or avoid foul weather. For a lot of us, that's less than we commute to work on a daily basis. For me, the haste of a year to raise a multi-coalition army embroiled in civil wars and assemble them in one location stretches the imagination enough to make it faster.