833 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

If DA3 uses something like DA2's dominant tone system, that system needs to be 100% transparent. The player needs to know exactly what he did to make his character behave in that way.

I would like the player to know in advance exactly what his character will do, but failing that it should be a lot easier for the player to work out what went wrong so he can fix it.

And I'd also like to be able to override the dominant tone system if necessary. In fact, THAT would be an excellent use for an interrupt system. Not to interrupt NPCs, but to interrupt game systems. That way BioWare could still write the flowing back-and-forth dialogues they like, but the player could intervene if that dialogue was going off the rails.

I like this idea so much, I'll put it in the other thread too.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 20 mars 2012 - 11:45 .

[LegendaryBlade]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

If DA3 uses something like DA2's dominant tone system, that system needs to be 100% transparent. The player needs to know exactly what he did to make his character behave in that way.

I would like the player to know in advance exactly what his character will do, but failing that it should be a lot easier for the player to work out what went wrong so he can fix it.

And I'd also like to be able to override the dominant tone system if necessary. In fact, THAT would be an excellent use for an interrupt system. Not to interrupt NPCs, but to interrupt game systems. That way BioWare could still write the flowing back-and-forth dialogues they like, but the player could intervene if that dialogue was going off the rails.

I like this idea so much, I'll put it in the other thread too.

Just to add to this, I think it'd be great if you let us quicksave during conversations. If you insist on the dialog wheel "Wait, no, that's not what I wanted him to say!' is just going to be a part of it. Being able to press F8 and go back to the last conversation decision would be fantastic.

[BillsVengenace]

BioWare and people giving feedback are running around in circles trying to solve a problem by ever more complicated and convoluted methods because BioWare are insanely resistant to going back to the simplest and most effective solution - a dialogue list showing exactly what the PC is going to say.

[Sylvius the Mad]

LegendaryBlade wrote...

Just to add to this, I think it'd be great if you let us quicksave during conversations.

And pause!  Please let us pause during conversations and cutscenes.  I don't want to have to reload and replay 20 minutes of gameplay because I missed a line when my kid walked into the room.

Please let us pause everything.

[LegendaryBlade]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

LegendaryBlade wrote...

Just to add to this, I think it'd be great if you let us quicksave during conversations.

And pause!  Please let us pause during conversations and cutscenes.  I don't want to have to reload and replay 20 minutes of gameplay because I missed a line when my kid walked into the room.

Please let us pause everything.

This, one hundred thousand times this. How does Bioware not do this? It's already starting to slowly become industry standard that cutscenes work on an "Escape brings up menu, skip is an option on the menu" thing. BW needs to catch up with the times.

[Sylvius the Mad]

LegendaryBlade wrote...

This, one hundred thousand times this. How does Bioware not do this? It's already starting to slowly become industry standard that cutscenes work on an "Escape brings up menu, skip is an option on the menu" thing. BW needs to catch up with the times.

As was just pointed out in another thread, NWN2 had pausable dialogue.  Six years ago.

[Mike_Neel]

The only real problem I have with it is that there are dialogue options that you know what they'll say, like the Diplomatic, Sarcastic, and Stern. That's fine because I at least have an idea of what that attitude will be. But there were a lot of options, usually the end dialogue/choice where you have the star or spiral arrow looking ones where I had no idea what my character would really say or do.

A few times they were shots in the dark.

[wsandista]

Mike_Neel wrote...

The only real problem I have with it is that there are dialogue options that you know what they'll say, like the Diplomatic, Sarcastic, and Stern. That's fine because I at least have an idea of what that attitude will be. But there were a lot of options, usually the end dialogue/choice where you have the star or spiral arrow looking ones where I had no idea what my character would really say or do.

A few times they were shots in the dark.

The problem I have is that the attitude is chosen for you as any two of my characters might have a completely different take on a convesation option. The rule of the voiced protagionist is in my opinion the single worst rule ever to become standard in RPGs. It seems to serve no purpose but to homogenize protagonists, when part of the appeal of an RPG is unique protagonists. Protagonists were silent  in DAO, NWN, NWN2, KOTOR , and KOTOR2 but all those games seem to do well.

[Lunar Savage]

My absolute biggest problem with the dialog wheel since it's introduction in ME 1 was the outright vagueness of the presented options. Do you have any idea how many times I had to completely reload whole segments of that game because shepard said something that was completely out of line with what I wanted to say? It pisses me off to no end.

I prefer to see exactly what I'm going to say. And I prefer to have a wide variety of options to pick from.

[mr_luga]

Just please check out Deus ex human revolution on paraphrasing done right. I can actually tell what I am going to say in that game, without it being 1:1 and it's with VOICE too even! Gasp! The magic they must use over there

[Vovea]

I enjoyed the bits of dialogue between party members and Hawke. If Hawke had said something like "Oh I love/hate all mages!" regardless of which side of the Templar and Mage conflict he or she was on, I'd have not liked it what so ever.

Little bits of fun banter that show a connection between characters and Hawke are harmless and, imo, add depth.

[MrMcDoll]

David Gaider wrote...
we have to make certain assumptions about how "the average player" plays their game, which is not true for everyone even though we have to make something as one-size-fits-all as we can. 

I feel as though you guys would make far better sequels (in the Dragon Age camp) if you just made the game how you wanted - without thinking about the 'average gamer'

Sounds counter-intuitive right?

BUT

Think about how DA-O was made with no attempt to capitalise on the casual 'average gamer' market. It was FOR RPG FANS BY RPG FANS. It seemed to be made to carry the torch of Baldur's Gate.
Not by pandering to the BG fanbase, but by appealing to what the GAME meant.

Than compare it to DA2 which was clearly made to appeal more to the modern ADHD gamers who like stuff fast and flashy.
It had a much more rushed feeling plot, much faster combat, and as a result, didn't appeal to the original fans, who were fans of DA-O because of how it conveyed the Baldur's Gate spirit.

It seems as though, at some point, Bioware has stopped making games based around the spirit of a bioware RPG or what have you, but instead made them to appeal to markets.

I really don't want to say it - but read the "Blue Ocean Strategy" marketing book - my girlfriend who doesn't game, saw me playing ME3 and DA2 and compared them to BG2 and said that You chaps were no longer making games to fulfil a space in a fresh blue ocean, but rather marketing your games to compete in the bloody red oceans, already inhabited by the mako and great white sharks of the COD franchise.

That said, I still have faith in Bioware - you are my favourite developer by far, it's just your last couple of offerings have seen a slow decline from unforgettable, unique and interesting, to run-of-the-mill, and mass-appeal(ing?) games.

Please prove me wrong, I know you guys are better than this!!!

[Joy Divison]

Most of my RPG experience is paper and pencil with actual people sitting around on the table, so can someone educate me when the concept of auto-dialogue became accepted as a RPG mechanic.

Just speaking for myself, no DM has *ever* taken control on my PC's dialogue except in extreme circumstances when she was under some sort of mind control (and even then, the DM would often convey the commands and I was still often allowed to role-play). And I would have been very annoyed had a DM ever said, "Your PC then says..."

As a DM, I never once thought it was a good idea for a PC or even for the sake of a game to control the dialogue of a player even in a meaningless conversation.

The concept is quite strange and I am surprised that any role-player would find it acceptable.

[Imrahil_]

David Gaider wrote...
If, however, one's suggestion is "present the dialogue exactly as you did in DAO", then I'm afraid that's not really in the cards. I'm not going to display the full line of dialogue in a voiced-PC system. There are, however, alternatives to the way we did it in DA2.

That's a shame to hear.  All I can say is my money is not exactly in the cards.  What happened to the David Gaider that more-or-less wrote Ascension?  You added a poop-ton of options & dialogue to the original bland ending to ToB (with some help, sure, Pocket Plane / Weimer ftw).  We saw every line of dialogue, they were quite nuanced, & many resulted in the same outcome but expressed different player reactions.

What happened to you since then, that you went away from that approach?  I mean that seriously, not like "what happened to you man?!?!?", but like "what changed in your approach?"  Why do you see that Ascension approach as bad now?

Modifié par Imrahil_, 21 mars 2012 - 04:08 .

[Lunar Savage]

Joy Divison wrote...

Most of my RPG experience is paper and pencil with actual people sitting around on the table, so can someone educate me when the concept of auto-dialogue became accepted as a RPG mechanic.

Just speaking for myself, no DM has *ever* taken control on my PC's dialogue except in extreme circumstances when she was under some sort of mind control (and even then, the DM would often convey the commands and I was still often allowed to role-play). And I would have been very annoyed had a DM ever said, "Your PC then says..."

As a DM, I never once thought it was a good idea for a PC or even for the sake of a game to control the dialogue of a player even in a meaningless conversation.

The concept is quite strange and I am surprised that any role-player would find it acceptable.

This. As a DM myself, I have had to think of reasonable reactions and results and make them ripple throughout the game world on the fly based on some of the most wild and random player reactions ever (I had some really ingenious players, even if they did sometimes go way out of bounds).

I just don't understand why Bioware can't do that. Especially since they're dealing with pre-set dialog choices they get to create and they have more than enough time to think up everything that could happen as a result of each choice.

If one man can do it while dealing with 4 players with wildly different reactions, Bioware should be able to make one character's responses look golden if they have a team of 2+ writers. (or is it that collaboration that makes the process so difficult? To many ideas to contend with?)

Their decision to abandon the old (and vastly superior) ways are quite baffling.

[Lunar Savage]

Imrahil_ wrote...

David Gaider wrote...
If, however, one's suggestion is "present the dialogue exactly as you did in DAO", then I'm afraid that's not really in the cards. I'm not going to display the full line of dialogue in a voiced-PC system. There are, however, alternatives to the way we did it in DA2.

That's a shame to hear.  All I can say is my money is not exactly in the cards.  What happened to the David Gaider that more-or-less wrote Ascension?  You added a poop-ton of options & dialogue to the original bland ending to ToB (with some help, sure, Pocket Plane / Weimer ftw).  We saw every line of dialogue, they were quite nuanced, & many resulted in the same outcome but expressed different player reactions.

What happened to you since then, that you went away from that approach?  I mean that seriously, not like "what happened to you man?!?!?", but like "what changed in your approach?"  Why do you see that Ascension approach as bad now?

You make an interesting point. A lot of the old dialog choices would sometimes give you similar responses, and Hell, even in some cases, the same response. And while that's great from a roleplay stand point and your character, I'm guessing the guys at Bioware looked at this and said, "screw it, let's just reduce it to a single option so we don't have to waste time on writing out several options with the same results".

Which, if that's the case, I say they went the wrong direction. And should have focused more on diversifying the responses of the NPCs. Doing that would add some serious damn replay value.

[panamakira]

OMG. This so much. Biggest issue with ME3 besides those horrid endings was this "auto-dialogue".

I'm scared they're going to implement this in DA3. Whatever was going on in DA2 is as far I'll go to be honest. We should always be in control of what our characters says.

[Morroian]

Joy Divison wrote...

Most of my RPG experience is paper and pencil with actual people sitting around on the table, so can someone educate me when the concept of auto-dialogue became accepted as a RPG mechanic.

I don't think it is. I give DA2 a pass on this because it is based on decisions you already made about your characters personality within the game and the default personalities are subject to change. ME3 however the game has clearly jumped to being an action game not an rpg, not to say its a bad game because of this, its just not justifiable as an rpg. 

[AkiKishi]

Lunar Savage wrote...

Imrahil_ wrote...

David Gaider wrote...
If, however, one's suggestion is "present the dialogue exactly as you did in DAO", then I'm afraid that's not really in the cards. I'm not going to display the full line of dialogue in a voiced-PC system. There are, however, alternatives to the way we did it in DA2.

That's a shame to hear.  All I can say is my money is not exactly in the cards.  What happened to the David Gaider that more-or-less wrote Ascension?  You added a poop-ton of options & dialogue to the original bland ending to ToB (with some help, sure, Pocket Plane / Weimer ftw).  We saw every line of dialogue, they were quite nuanced, & many resulted in the same outcome but expressed different player reactions.

What happened to you since then, that you went away from that approach?  I mean that seriously, not like "what happened to you man?!?!?", but like "what changed in your approach?"  Why do you see that Ascension approach as bad now?

You make an interesting point. A lot of the old dialog choices would sometimes give you similar responses, and Hell, even in some cases, the same response. And while that's great from a roleplay stand point and your character, I'm guessing the guys at Bioware looked at this and said, "screw it, let's just reduce it to a single option so we don't have to waste time on writing out several options with the same results".

Which, if that's the case, I say they went the wrong direction. And should have focused more on diversifying the responses of the NPCs. Doing that would add some serious damn replay value.

It's a case of costs. Back when you had written dialogue it was not much more effort to write 6 responses than it was to write 3. Anyone who created a NWN scenerio will be familiar with that. If on the other hand you had to pay someone to speak those lines, then that extra multiplied over the whole game, it becomes a huge burden.

In real terms focusing on replay value only covers a small % of buyers, you are lucky if most people finish a game, let alone replay it. As such, it will likely be quite low down on the priority list.

[fchopin]

David Gaider wrote...


I'm not going to display the full line of dialogue in a voiced-PC system.

Why not?
We can have a toggle for full dialogue text if it bothers you so you don’t have to see the text.

Modifié par fchopin, 21 mars 2012 - 10:19 .

[Shaun2406]

Okay, while I wasn't a huge fan of auto-dialogue during the actual dialogue-wheel conversations, I really didn't mind Hawke participating in party banter (while you ran around the map) using the 'dominant tone' thing, in fact I quite liked it.

Its generally just minor comments, but it felt better than the Warden stoically ignoring the fact his/her party members were talking about him/her right next to him/her! And I don't really see a way to make that not auto dialogue without removing it... So I personally think thats worth keeping

[AkiKishi]

Shaun2406 wrote...

Okay, while I wasn't a huge fan of auto-dialogue during the actual dialogue-wheel conversations, I really didn't mind Hawke participating in party banter (while you ran around the map) using the 'dominant tone' thing, in fact I quite liked it.

Its generally just minor comments, but it felt better than the Warden stoically ignoring the fact his/her party members were talking about him/her right next to him/her! And I don't really see a way to make that not auto dialogue without removing it... So I personally think thats worth keeping

That's the problem. Many of things people want are reliant on having a silent protagonist and a very open character generation. Being a something, rather than a someone.

Once you introduce a voice and a fixed protagonist , these things become difficult to impossible.
I think Dave is doing the right thing by setting it out from the start, that way people can either get over it, or conclude that DA3 is not for them much eariler in the process. It's somewhat refreshing after the string along act from ME3.

[Dutchess]

I don't mind small parts of autodialogue, as long as the PC doesn't say extreme things. I'm thinking of sarcastic Hawke here, when he/she returns to Emeric with the severed hand: "recognize your mage?" That was just bad and not fun.That my Hawke is sarcastic doesn't mean he/she even jokes about murder in this way.
On the other hand, I was pleasently surprised when I noticed the different lines when Hawke tells a sister of the Chantry to go get the Grand Cleric ("tell her... three Qunari leave Viscount's Keep and let her finish" or something like that).
So I suggest to look carefully to the situation when autodialogue is needed, and kep it a bit more neutral when something very serious is involved.

[Corto81]

David Gaider wrote...


If player VO is your issue, however, then that is simply a non-starter. There are benefits that come with player VO as well as weaknesses, but on the whole we feel that the benefits outweigh the weaknesses. That is going nowhere, and there's no point dilly-dallying around it if that's where your enjoyment breaks down.

Honest question here, David, can you give us a short answer as to why you guys believe the voiced protagonist is necessary? Or better than a silent protagonist?

Almost all of the legendary RPGs had silent protagonists (off the top of my head, I think Witcher series and Vampire series had voiced ones, but with a SET character - Geralt, Christoph, etc.).
BG, PS:T, NWN, IWD, Morrowind, Oblivion, KOTOR, etc etc etc.

Even the most recent ones to achieve major success had silent protagonists and very few complaints were raised about it.
Skyrim, KOA:R, DA:Origins, etc.

So yeah... Why do you guys feel that strongly that voiced character is a MUST, when it so obviously hampers your budget and takes away time from adding content and depth to the game?

Because, content > cosmetics.

[AkiKishi]

renjility wrote...

I don't mind small parts of autodialogue, as long as the PC doesn't say extreme things. I'm thinking of sarcastic Hawke here, when he/she returns to Emeric with the severed hand: "recognize your mage?" That was just bad and not fun.That my Hawke is sarcastic doesn't mean he/she even jokes about murder in this way.
On the other hand, I was pleasently surprised when I noticed the different lines when Hawke tells a sister of the Chantry to go get the Grand Cleric ("tell her... three Qunari leave Viscount's Keep and let her finish" or something like that).
So I suggest to look carefully to the situation when autodialogue is needed, and kep it a bit more neutral when something very serious is involved.

That's why I think this implied sense of "ownership" is a bad thing. When I play FFXIII-2, it's not my Sarah or my Noel, it's Sarah and Noel, they are their own characters and as such nothing they do can be out of character. Even if I think it's stupid, or dumb.

It's fine to have a sense of ownership over a character you create yourself, but it never really works with a pre-gen. It's always a compromise.In a modern game, the ammount of work required for every possibility is impossible.
This sort of thing only worked in the past because your imagination was filling in the blanks.