121 réponses à ce sujet

[Shannara13]

Kaosgirl wrote...

Infiniteone2 wrote...

Not a troll, I expect near perfection, because I know the problems slacking and being careless can lead to over the course of time, and I don't expect most people to understand this because I train hundreds of people (you people) every year and they never "get it"

So... you're a pathetic trainer?  

Just staying within the tone of discussion you've already endorsed.

And a hypocrite too, since he is human I think its safe to assume that he makes his share of mistakes too.

[SphereofSilence]

Silensfurtim wrote...

i really need to get these books. we dont have it yet here in the philippines

You can try buying an electronic version online. I'm sure there were other online stores, but got mine from BooksOnBoard.com and Mobipocket.com.

[Wild Maiden]

Shannara13 wrote...
I dare you to find me any story of a decent size that contains zero plot holes.

Plot holes are different than direct, specific, explicit contradictions.  I have zero interest in the books and very little in the lore other than how it relates to the game (i.e. I don't spend hours reading codex entries), but I still feel for those who were hoping to get a consistent world full of back story.  I understand that errors and mistakes happen, that's ok, but from Mr. Gaider's post it sounds like he's known about some of these mistakes but isn't going to do anything for fix them...

Anybody else find the "whoops, these things happen, oh well" mentality a little offensive?  Patch this, it seems like a no brainer to me...

[Torias]

A bit of perspective may be useful here.



Do you honestly think it's worth the thousands of dollars of cost and effort to change a few words about where Duncan's parents are from? Thousands of dollars they could spend on making actual improvements and fixes to the game?

[Wild Maiden]

Torias wrote...

A bit of perspective may be useful here.

Do you honestly think it's worth the thousands of dollars of cost and effort to change a few words about where Duncan's parents are from? Thousands of dollars they could spend on making actual improvements and fixes to the game?

How could it possibly cost thousands of dollars to change a few words?  And, to be honest, even if it did, I might answer "Yes" because the back story is CLEARLY a major selling point and is very important to a large number of players.

Glad to hear you're investing in fixes to the game, we're still waiting on that by the way...

[Kaosgirl]

Wild Maiden wrote...

Shannara13 wrote...
I dare you to find me any story of a decent size that contains zero plot holes.

Plot holes are different than direct, specific, explicit contradictions.  I have zero interest in the books and very little in the lore other than how it relates to the game (i.e. I don't spend hours reading codex entries), but I still feel for those who were hoping to get a consistent world full of back story.  I understand that errors and mistakes happen, that's ok, but from Mr. Gaider's post it sounds like he's known about some of these mistakes but isn't going to do anything for fix them...

Anybody else find the "whoops, these things happen, oh well" mentality a little offensive?  Patch this, it seems like a no brainer to me...

Patching a reference to Duncan's ancestry seems like a *lot* of work for a trivial problem.  

Some of the others, like the lore being in error on some points, isn't an error or mistake.  It's deliberate, in an attempt to present a common occurrence in historical study: the difference between what people believe to be true and what is actually true.

[Shannara13]

Wild Maiden wrote...

Torias wrote...

A bit of perspective may be useful here.

Do you honestly think it's worth the thousands of dollars of cost and effort to change a few words about where Duncan's parents are from? Thousands of dollars they could spend on making actual improvements and fixes to the game?

How could it possibly cost thousands of dollars to change a few words?  And, to be honest, even if it did, I might answer "Yes" because the back story is CLEARLY a major selling point and is very important to a large number of players.

Glad to hear you're investing in fixes to the game, we're still waiting on that by the way...

Since everything is voiced in the game they would have to recall the voice actors to fix it which would cost a good bit of money.

[Wild Maiden]

Kaosgirl wrote...
Patching a reference to Duncan's ancestry seems like a *lot* of work for a trivial problem.  

How is it a lot of work?  I mean seriously...  Personally I agree with you that's a trivial problem, but many people don't, and trivial or not it's still a problem...

[Torias]

Wild Maiden wrote...

How could it possibly cost thousands of dollars to change a few words?

Dialogue changes written.

Dialogue Localized for every language.

Voice actors and Studio time for every language.

Testing.

Certification from MS and Sony.

 And, to be honest, even if it did, I might answer "Yes" because the back story is CLEARLY a major selling point and is very important to a large number of players.

I agree the story is important. I don't agree that Duncan's parent's history is part of the Story of Dragon Age: Origins.

And I wouldn't say this particular background history inconsistency is either "very important" nor even known to "a large number of players".

Glad to hear you're investing in fixes to the game, we're still waiting on that by the way...

Note that I'm just a community moderator, trying to help out the community.

[Wild Maiden]

I think the point extends beyond the one instance described by the OP and more generally applies to inconsistencies in the back story in general and how they will be handled. Sounds like not at all, which is unfortunate for those of us who find that aspect of the game particularly appealing.

[Kaosgirl]

Wild Maiden wrote...

Kaosgirl wrote...
Patching a reference to Duncan's ancestry seems like a *lot* of work for a trivial problem.  

How is it a lot of work?  

It involves:
-tracking down the section of the source code where the error exists and altering it (ease varies on how well the source code was documented)
- recompiling the code (oh boy, fun.)
- testing to make sure the correction was done right & didn't screw something else up (not always as easy as it seems)
- implementing a patch code to update installed copies of the game, which is (afaik) the real tricky part.  And the part where you could most easily break the installed copy, so this has to be tested as well.

EDIT:  Forgot about getting voice-actors to redo lines if the information was presented via conversation rather than codex entry.

Wild Maiden wrote...
I mean seriously...  Personally I agree with you that's a trivial problem, but many people don't, and trivial or not it's still a problem...

"Many people" - where?  I see a couple of people complaining in an environment known for selection-bias towards nitpickers (who, by definition, don't distinguish between the trivial and non-trivial.)  That doesn't say much.

And all of this might be handled in a far simpler way:  write it off as "the character mis-spoke."  Problematic if overdone (unless the character has a pre-existing tendency towards getting details wrong), but for trivial and isolated issues it works.

I haven't hit the point in-game where it comes up yet (yes, I'm plodding slowly here), so I don't know if that's viable.

Modifié par Kaosgirl, 06 décembre 2009 - 09:15 .

[Torias]

Wild Maiden wrote...

I think the point extends beyond the one instance described by the OP and more generally applies to inconsistencies in the back story in general and how they will be handled. Sounds like not at all, which is unfortunate for those of us who find that aspect of the game particularly appealing.

As someone who grew up on Star Trek, I can only tell you that inconsistency is a fact of life.

Even in cases where you have one writer writing one novel, there are often inconsistencies.

And when you have a team of writers (even with one lead writer), working over several years, and producing a huge game and 2 tie in novels, inconsistencies are inevitable.

If you choose to focus on these inevitable inconsistencies, that's your choice.

There's a huge game and 2 fun novels to enjoy, if you let yourself :-)

[Leonhartx]

Should I find a story that contains zero plot holes or should I point out game Lore's that aren't taken seriously because of Writer's constantly making mistakes?

Wanna look at the transition of Warcraft 3 to WoW?..... I'd say that Lore went straight to the trash.

All im hearing right now is "It's realistic to feed us BS lore that we won't know is BS until we read the books, and then we can praise the writer for not giving us anything -real-(Storywise) in the game because we can just edit it later."

Edit: And now how it's too expensive for bioware to edit their mistakes so they can rally their fans to scream "Trivial" with them.

"It happens, look at star trek.".... well it sounds like you enjoy having your storys thrown around, im not really into getting into a story and then 5 years later the writer goes and says "that never happened"

I Don't think getting used to LOLlore is the right solution.

Modifié par Leonhartx, 06 décembre 2009 - 05:34 .

[adastrum]

I would actually be upset with Bioware if they updated this.



There are far more important things regarding DA:O for them to work on. Gameplay fixes, extra content, memory leak issues. Wasting their time on a small thing like Duncan's parentage would actually upset me.

[Zcorck]

adastrum wrote...

I would actually be upset with Bioware if they updated this.

There are far more important things regarding DA:O for them to work on. Gameplay fixes, extra content, memory leak issues. Wasting their time on a small thing like Duncan's parentage would actually upset me.

I agree, because you know where he is from and it's not like that single part is going to ruin dozens of hours of gameplay experience.

[jivebeaver]

Kaosgirl wrote...

Wild Maiden wrote...

Kaosgirl wrote...
Patching a reference to Duncan's ancestry seems like a *lot* of work for a trivial problem.  

How is it a lot of work?  

It involves:
-tracking down the section of the source code where the error exists and altering it (ease varies on how well the source code was documented)
- recompiling the code (oh boy, fun.)
- testing to make sure the correction was done right & didn't screw something else up (not always as easy as it seems)
- implementing a patch code to update installed copies of the game, which is (afaik) the real tricky part.  And the part where you could most easily break the installed copy, so this has to be tested as well.

EDIT:  Forgot about getting voice-actors to redo lines if the information was presented via conversation rather than codex entry.

yeah right, its just a line in the talktable.  on that note, infinite, you can go in there yourself and find it and change it

[Echo Drive]

A few things from the novels that I would have liked to see incorporated into the game are:

• In the novels, the Deep Roads were dark and required torches or light from a magic staff.  I would loved to have seen this incorporated into the game because it would have made it scary down there and enhanced the feel of the game.  Some great party conversations would also have enhanced the feel of gloom and dread.
• In the novels, the Deep Roads are also covered in the darkspawn taint and in the game, we don't see much of that (if at all - not sure if that stuff near the broodmother is taint or not).  The taint also affected those who came in contact with it.  I would have liked to see something like that happen in the game, where those who are not grey wardens would receive a negative effect while in the Deep Roads.

Modifié par Echo Drive, 06 décembre 2009 - 06:59 .

[Dark83]

Servant of Nature wrote...

Dark83 wrote...

Personally, with regards to Lore, I always ignore the secondary media. DA:O is lore consistant within itself, and that's all the matters and is relevant as far as DA:O is concerned.

Normally I would agree with this, but David wrote both books and was the lead writer for Dragon Age... kind of hard to ignore that.  So far The Stolen Throne tied quite seemlessly with the game,  The Calling is tied in slightly with Warden's Keep if you talk to Levi about it.  The thing with Duncan's parents is off but I don't see that as a particularly big deal.

If George Lucas writes a Star Wars trilogy novel, complete with inner monologues, where Luke isn't a whiney farmboy, it won't change what Luke is in the movie, you dig? Han could be written as a conflicted tormented emo, but the novelization doesn't change the Han of the movie.

[Wild Maiden]

Dark83 wrote...
If George Lucas writes a Star Wars trilogy novel, complete with inner monologues, where Luke isn't a whiney farmboy, it won't change what Luke is in the movie, you dig? Han could be written as a conflicted tormented emo, but the novelization doesn't change the Han of the movie.

If George Lucas wrote in a book that was supposed to be cannon that Luke's father was a wookie, and you watch the movies and think "...That doesn't make sense", then George Lucas comes on the community forum and says "whoops my bad, deal with it" wouldn't that kind of ruin the whole thing for you?  You could choose to just ignore the novels but that would really only work if you felt the developers and writers were going to do the same on future content (DLC, expansions, etc).  It would make more sense to incorporate the content of the book into the game than it would to treat them as separate works with no relation to each other (which is clearly not what was intended). 

In a game where the lore plays such a critical role it should not be cast aside so quickly and forgotten about.

This isn't Star Trek where there are dozens of movies, series, books, and games written by dozens of writers over decades.  This is one game and 2 books written mostly by one author.  When errors turn up, it's not enough to just say "my bad" and expect everybody to just except it because it's a "fact of life".  They have it in their power to fix this but are choosing not to.  I don't even care about the lore and that still bothers me.  

Modifié par Wild Maiden, 06 décembre 2009 - 09:09 .

[Leonhartx]

Wild Maiden wrote...

Dark83 wrote...
If George Lucas writes a Star Wars trilogy novel, complete with inner monologues, where Luke isn't a whiney farmboy, it won't change what Luke is in the movie, you dig? Han could be written as a conflicted tormented emo, but the novelization doesn't change the Han of the movie.

If George Lucas wrote in a book that was supposed to be cannon that Luke's father was a wookie, and you watch the movies and think "...That doesn't make sense", then George Lucas comes on the community forum and says "whoops my bad, deal with it" wouldn't that kind of ruin the whole thing for you?  You could choose to just ignore the novels but that would really only work if you felt the developers and writers were going to do the same on future content (DLC, expansions, etc).  It would make more sense to incorporate the content of the book into the game than it would to treat them as separate works with no relation to each other (which is clearly not what was intended). 

In a game where the lore plays such a critical role it should not be cast aside so quickly and forgotten about.

This isn't Star Trek where there are dozens of movies, series, books, and games written by dozens of writers over decades.  This is one game and 2 books written mostly by one author.  When errors turn up, it's not enough to just say "my bad" and expect everybody to just except it because it's a "fact of life".  They have it in their power to fix this but are choosing not to.  I don't even care about the lore and that still bothers me.  

This is exactly the point I was trying to make with my posts, but you've said it far better than I.

The Lore is -Critical- to this game...

Did anyone seriously read the authors post and not skim through and start immediatly agreeing just because you love the game?

[Inakhia]

Codex entries are found as pages from documents, lost love letter, dairy entries ect...Its not the word of God handed down from on high. Its people views and opinions of what's happened to them, or they've viewed. Of course its not going to be infallibly correct. All the information we learn in game is suspect since its all relative to who's telling us and how their opinions may distort or influence what information they give us. This is not the same as giving us BS information. This is called presenting a realistic viewpoint of the people who's lives we're affecting.

If you want perfectly true infallible information you probably need to stop reading and playing games.



If your going to jump down the throats of the devs and writers because they have the balls to tell you their not going to jump when you Bark? Well, they have as much right to air their opinion on this forum as the whiners do, and their still doing it with considerably more class.



For more perspective: You worrying about a Dead, Fictional characters Dead Parents. On which point I'm not sure we even recieved 'authentic' information about him in game. Just guesses and maybes. He 'may' have come from Highever, his parents 'may' have been rivaini...I'm not going to loose sleep over this and I'm not going to see this as a shortcoming of the writers since they've managed to hold my enraptured attention thoroughly for two full play thoughts at gods knows how many lost hours. I've also read and tried to collect *every* bloody codex entry out there and have yet to find anything brain breaking.

[elijah_kaine]

Inakhia wrote...

Codex entries are found as pages from documents, lost love letter, dairy entries ect...Its not the word of God handed down from on high. Its people views and opinions of what's happened to them, or they've viewed. Of course its not going to be infallibly correct. All the information we learn in game is suspect since its all relative to who's telling us and how their opinions may distort or influence what information they give us. This is not the same as giving us BS information. This is called presenting a realistic viewpoint of the people who's lives we're affecting.
If you want perfectly true infallible information you probably need to stop reading and playing games.

This has been stated several times. So most of the time with codex entires the inconsistencies are intentional. As they should be, depending on where you are hearing the information from, A high up member of the Chantry would probably never tell you that they struck against the Dalish first, but there you go. They wouldn't teach it either, probably burry the truth and write books depecting the lie. Just as an eample I really don't want to get into a Chantry arguement or debate, thanks.

As far as inconsistencies it happens all the time in fiction whether that is television shows movies or whatever. It really shouldn't be a big enough deal to start wagging your finger at people as if they did something wrong. People in general really underestimate what it takes to write something and make sure there are no inconsistencies. (And I mean professionally I'm really personally not going to care if someone posts a doc from the latest Twlight fan fiction.) For instance, I'm a huge fan of Stephen King, and even he goes through books with some inconsitinces at times, someone with blonde hair at the begining as brown hair by the end, you know things like that, not super important to the main plot line.

If you were in a game investigation the birth of Duncan (or even a side quest) I might be understanding of being upset over this very tiny detail. However it doesn't ever really come up as important. Hell maybe Alistair just doesn't really know where Duncan grew up, maybe Duncan never really talked about it and he just thinks it may have been Highever (Yes, the lead writer knows that it was a consistency issue, that doesn't mean that there can't be an in game plot that makes sense.)

[Wild Maiden]

I don't think anybody is upset that there are inconsistencies, however some people are upset that nothing is being done to correct them.

Again I'll say that the point extends beyond the one particular example given by the OP to the lore in general. Is it a priority to keep the history and back story consistent across all mediums or not? We're not talking about word of mouth information, we're talking about facts given the books contradicting facts given in the game.

I don't care about the lore that much, especially the minor details (I probably wouldn't even notice them). What I do care about is the general "we know there are errors, but whatever, we're not going to be bothered by correcting our mistakes" attitude expressed by a few of the developers. The same sort of thing came up regarding the dexterity issues.

Problems and mistakes should be fixed wherever possible. In this case, it's definitely possible. It's not a big issue with the lineage of the parents, but what about other, and future, inconsistencies? I would rather hear them say "thank you for pointing that out, we'll fix that in a patch" than say "whoops, oh well".

Modifié par Wild Maiden, 07 décembre 2009 - 05:07 .

[Leonhartx]

Wild Maiden wrote...

I don't think anybody is upset that there are inconsistencies, however some people are upset that nothing is being done to correct them.

Again I'll say that the point extends beyond the one particular example given by the OP to the lore in general. Is it a priority to keep the history and back story consistent across all mediums or not? We're not talking about word of mouth information, we're talking about facts given the books contradicting facts given in the game.

I don't care about the lore that much, especially the minor details (I probably wouldn't even notice them). What I do care about is the general "we know there are errors, but whatever, we're not going to be bothered by correcting our mistakes" attitude expressed by a few of the developers. The same sort of thing came up regarding the dexterity issues.

Problems and mistakes should be fixed wherever possible. In this case, it's definitely possible. It's not a big issue with the lineage of the parents, but what about other, and future, inconsistencies? I would rather hear them say "thank you for pointing that out, we'll fix that in a patch" than say "whoops, oh well".

They just come on here to be fanboys. There's no point in trying to continue. I tried to point out the Authors post and they just spam trivial, or "That's how its supposed to be."... right....

[Wolfva2]

Ok everyone.  Take a deep breath and step away from your keyboards.  I'm shutting down the internet until you can stop acting like spoilt brats and grow up.

Sheesh, you DO realize you are throwing a temper tantrum over a discrepency about the parentage of 1 character which is utterly meaningless to the story in the game, right?  Who cares who Duncan's parents were?  Or his mother's cat's name?  Or how manly the whiskers on his great grandfather's face?  I swear, but I'm almost flabbergasted at the...the...SHEESH.  Words fail me.  3 pages of people complaining about a very very minor inconsistancy which changes nothing and which almost no one but the most asinine tight arsed nitpicker would even have noticed.  "OH NO!  This minor inconsistancy will lead to people laughing at the lore and not taking it seriously!  Here's a newsflash, anyone that is THAT invested in the vast minutae of a story is going to find something wrong no matter what.  Perfection is inatainable by ANYONE*, and there will always be mistakes.  

Another newsflash.  ANY tv series, movie series, book series has inconsistancies in it.  Name one that doesn't, and I'll point out you just didn't notice them.  MASH, The Simpsons, Friends, Sienfeld (well, maybe not that show, but only because it wasn't about anything), the Dick Van ****** show, The Show of Shows, etc.  All had inconsistancies.  Hey, want to see inconsistancies?  Read 'The Lord of the Rings', then read 'The Silmarrilion'.  Not even Tolkien could keep things straight from book to book.  


*Actually, that's not quite true.  There are people who strive to become total a******s, and they oft times achieve it.