69 réponses à ce sujet

[PsychoBlonde]

 So, The Laidlaw was talking a bit about how they really, really want to get more into the "Show, Don't Tell" ethos with the writing on The Next Thing™.  So maybe we can come up with some suggestions on how to accomplish that!

Here's some of mine:

1.  Write the game as if there's no codex.  Even better (IMO) GET RID OF THE CODEX ENTIRELY.  It's not that I dislike all the cool stories and stuff, but I think having it there is holding you guys back from really developing your ossum characteriztion and expositional abilities!

2.  Write as if there are no investigate options, and you have to convey 100% of the situational information without ever letting the player click "investigate".  Maybe even consider getting rid of the "Investigate" options entirely in favor of making those different options for the PC to approach the situation instead of just different things for the PC to ASK.  And don't ever let the player go back to the same list of questions in order to cycle through all of them.  Have situations where making a snap decision benefits you because people become irate when they're interrogated.  Stuff like that!

3.  USE THE PC FOR EXPOSITION.  The protagonist has lived in Thedas all their life.  They have to know SOMETHING about SOMETHING.  Let some of the explanations issue from the PC's mouth.  Heck, I would be absolutely floored if you did something as cool as (at least occasionally) replace the ? options with an icon that looks like a book to let the PC deliver some erudition on the topic at hand.

4. CUT CUT CUT the dialog.  When I went back to replay DA2 a couple of weeks ago, I started making notes of how many times a character will a.) say something, then b.) immediately repeat basically the same thing in a slightly different way.  I was up to, literally, DOZENS of examples JUST by the time Hawke & co got to Kirkwall.  Heck, assign an editor just to go through the dialog line by line and flag all of these repeats before they get voice-recorded, and the savings will probably be enormous.  Plus you'll have SO MUCH more air time for stuff that's NOT A REPEAT OF SOMETHING THAT WAS JUST SAID.  I realize this is generally done for emphasis, but if you feel the original statement is weak, emphasize it by fixing that statement, not by rephrasing it and saying it AGAIN. 

Modifié par PsychoBlonde, 18 avril 2012 - 07:29 .

[BrookerT]

I thought he meant "Show not tell" marketing wise, you know, instead of talking about combat, actually showing it.

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm sure they're doing that too, but "show, don't tell" is a narrative principle.

[Dejajeva]

I love your ideas! I though the show don't tell policy was concerning showing us how things like combat or equipment would work instead of telling us how combat and equipment would work. But I do like your ideas a lot especially number 3.

Hawke asked the silliest questions sometimes.

[the_one_54321]

I prefer a codex.

[Arppis]

They tried show not tell with Mass Effect 3 ending. It didn't go very well.

Everything needs to be explained, or people will not like it.

Modifié par Arppis, 18 avril 2012 - 07:40 .

[brushyourteeth]

I agree to some extent about the repitition of dialogue, which the writers used in a well-meaning way in order to get a point across.

Concepts like "Life for mages isn't fair" were repeated so consisently that they started to lose their meaning for me (and for some of the other NPC's too, as they told Anders that they were less interested in the cause of mages than they were getting him to shut up about it).

Reminds me of a quote from C.S. Lewis:
“Don't say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we've read the description. You see, all those words horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite are only like saying to your readers please will you do the job for me”

Translate that to video games: there should have been more show and less tell. More mage brutality and less talk about brutality. More blood magic atrocity and less talk about blood mage atrocity. More terrible conditions in Kirkwall and less talk about said conditions.

Still love me a good codex, though.

[Servo to the bitter end]

The prospect of losing the codex makes me super sad, but otherwise...I'd be firmly on board with this.

Dialog needs some fixing though, as you say. One of the most irritating aspects, to me, is the flow - or lack thereof, when you're given numerous investigate options. The end result is a super awkwardly flowing conversation. I think they could probably fix that by having each investigate option opened up by the one before it, rather then getting all three or however many presented at once and then guessing at the most logical order in which to tackle them. That way, the dialog could be written in such a way that each interrogative statement flows smoothly on to the next, as opposed to "Where's that ogre?" leading to "You mentioned your mother."

Or am I the only one annoyed by this?

[Atakuma]

1. I don't see the codex having much effect on anything, it's supplemental and mostly irrelevant to the story.
2. I'd rather not have every character turn into an inception style exposition dispenser. You get most of the relevant information up front and have the option of delving deeper if you are inclined, that's how I'd like to keep it.
3. This I like, it never made sense how the PC basically knows nothing about anything.

Modifié par Atakuma, 18 avril 2012 - 07:58 .

[brushyourteeth]

Atakuma wrote...

3. This I like, it never made sense how the PC basically knows nothing about anything.

Eh. In DAII it definitely felt that way for me, but I was really impressed during my first playthough of DA:O by how the writers used your pc's knowledge to push the story along. For instance, "That would make the mages angry" when Alistair tells you that as an ex-Templar, he was the one sent to deliver a message to them.

[CarlSpackler]

I don't agree with any of those requests.

[ScotGaymer]

Arppis wrote...

They tried show not tell with Mass Effect 3 ending. It didn't go very well.

Everything needs to be explained, or people will not like it.

Clearly you do not know what Show Dont Tell means as a narrative concept.

An example of Telling and Not Showing is when Obi-Wan and Anakin are talking in the lift in the Jedi Temple in Ep 2 about Anakin being reckless and irresponsible, and occassionally foolish and headstrong. It is meant to be foreshadowing Anakins ultimate fall to the Dark Side.
Unfortunately these traits are never Shown to the audience. We are simply repeatedly told, Anakin is this and Anakin is that and just expected to accept it without supporting evidence that would have been presented in the Show. We are never Shown what he is like, in fact when the opportunity to Show us that he is reckless and headstrong crops up not 10 minutes after the conversation about his recklessness they decline to take it and instead have Obi-Wan act like Anakin supposedly is instead.
And it is one of the reasons Anakin fails as a main character. He is not presented in any way that would allow the audience to relate to him. Again the focus on Telling us who he is instead of Showing us who he is creates a disconnect between the audience and the character.

Showing can involve Telling, and indeed often has to, to get the point across. But without the Show part the Telling fails epically.

And the ending of Mass Effect 3 neither Showed nor Told.

Modifié par FitScotGaymer, 18 avril 2012 - 08:51 .

[yusuf060297]

i completely agree with all you just said, but imo they should keep the codex, they dont have to rewrite it, so it can be there for people that dont know much about the lore, but besides that they should imo get rid of the investigation options and the repeated things the characters say all over again, they really feel like dialogue fillers, it really felt annoying after a time, especially anders' mage talks...

[brushyourteeth]

Dialogue should be about investigating the companion's background and character, and establishing what we, the player, want our PC's background and character to be.

Just about everything else would be better explained through quests and non-companion NPC's, IMO.

Codex stuff is helpful for those of us who love the world enough that no amount of gameplay could satisfy our curiosity to know more.

[brushyourteeth]

Could be fun though to have codex entries available up-front, consolidated to somewhere outside of your start menu. Especially if there's a character that would explain things to you the way Leliana did, or loan you some books on the subject whenever you felt like it.

... maybe someone like Brother Genitivi could be available to you for this purpose back at your base of operations (like Bodahn and Sandal) for those that love codex (like me) but hate collecting it (like me).

Could save precious time with companions when all you need to know is "what's the difference between a hunger demon and a pride demon?"

Modifié par brushyourteeth, 18 avril 2012 - 09:48 .

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm in favor of throwing out the codex ONLY as and to the extent that it'll prompt better exploration of stuff in-game. It's not that I don't enjoy reading the codex, it's that having it promotes lazy exposition.

It'd be neat if the codex was more-integrated into the game, though, so that, say, you could get those book options I proposed if you'd gone and located the codex entry on, say, Dragon Whelps. This might be a great option to replace what used to be Persuade tags and became Dominant Tone Options. And, it'd give opportunities to do extra characterization by having NPC's respond to at least some investigate options by speaking VERY SLOWLY and USING SMALL WORDS because the PC is obviously an IGNORAMUS.

Lol, you know what they could do?  Put an achievement called "Ignoramus" in the game for doing a playthrough where you collected ZERO codex entries.

Modifié par PsychoBlonde, 18 avril 2012 - 10:46 .

[Pasquale1234]

brushyourteeth wrote...

Could be fun though to have codex entries available up-front, consolidated to somewhere outside of your start menu. Especially if there's a character that would explain things to you the way Leliana did, or loan you some books on the subject whenever you felt like it.

... maybe someone like Brother Genitivi could be available to you for this purpose back at your base of operations (like Bodahn and Sandal) for those that love codex (like me) but hate collecting it (like me).

Could save precious time with companions when all you need to know is "what's the difference between a hunger demon and a pride demon?"

I've often thought it would be interesting to have an actual working library in the game world - shelves organized by topic, and a reference librarian voiced by Anthony Stewart Head.... but maybe I've been watching too many Buffy reruns lately.

[Maria Caliban]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

GET RID OF THE CODEX ENTIRELY.

No.

PsychoBlonde wrote...

When I went back to replay DA2 a couple of weeks ago, I started making notes of how many times a character will a.) say something, then b.) immediately repeat basically the same thing in a slightly different way.  I was up to, literally, DOZENS of examples JUST by the time Hawke & co got to Kirkwall.

Can you give specific examples?

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 18 avril 2012 - 10:47 .

[Pzykozis]

yes, yes, yes, yes... though I'd have to say that showing isn't something that bioware have been particularlay strong on, would love for far more visual storytelling to take place though its important to me.

[Firky]

Eeep. I respectfully disagree with them all, except possibly four because I haven't really thought about it.

On 1, one of the tihngs I love about games is that story info can be presented in a whole bunch of different, supportive ways. You can get your story from dialogue, also from a codex Brother Genetivi wrote, or whatever.

On 3, that's probably consistent with a defined protagonist, like Hawke, but it may undermine roleplaying a bit. Depends on how defined the protag is, probably.

[PsychoBlonde]

Maria Caliban wrote...

PsychoBlonde wrote...

When I went back to replay DA2 a couple of weeks ago, I started making notes of how many times a character will a.) say something, then b.) immediately repeat basically the same thing in a slightly different way.  I was up to, literally, DOZENS of examples JUST by the time Hawke & co got to Kirkwall.

Can you give specific examples?

Yeah if I want to go back and re-play the intro real quick.

[Maria Caliban]

I am sure you're correct. No need to trouble yourself on my account.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

A lot of the exposition we see in BioWare games can be offloaded onto the game world (environment) or through the gameplay mechanics or through ambient non-cinematic events quite easily. Games like Thief or System Shock did this masterfully.

So, I think that gameplay enforcement of narrative themes and elements is essential in making things easier to "show, not tell", because there's no need to "tell" if it's already shown. It also makes the narrative more palatable and more enjoyable since you don't have mentally disassociate narrative from gameplay for it to make sense (gameplay/story segregation).

I can't help for example, but think that Dragon Age 2's narrative would've been stronger had there been less info dump and whining about the Mage/Templar conflict in dialogs, but actual gameplay relevance which could've been accomodated by gameplay mechanics that support the story themes or premise.

i.e Law/Order and Disguise systems to simulate living as a Mage in Kirkwall. Faction systems to simulate the balance of power in Kirkwall, which changes depending on how you approach/complete quests and effects minor details on future ones if mutually exclusive branching was a no-go.

If BioWare cared to adopt such a philosophy in making their games, I believe it'd make for better stories, because for all of the hype about BioWare having good stories, their strengths lie in character interaction and it's peripheral elements (romance, voice acting, etc). Their stories or storytelling isn't actually that good IMO and one of the reasons for that is because it tends to info dump on you during dialog.

It's like BioWare struggles at storytelling outside of the scripted cinematic moments or banter.

This is a prime example of info dumping that could've been approached in a totally different manner.

Have the group of Elves yelling at the man for any last words. The human cries out for help while the Elf yells that she'll get revenge for her mother and ordering you to stay back. If you choose to leave them alone, they execute the human. If you go closer, the Elves auto attack you since they perceive you to be a threat.

If you let the Elves execute the guy, as they walk some of them comment "I'm glad it's finally over, we've been hunting the beast since he fled from Brecilian Forest." They give you some gold for your silence and they leave. Since it's an event that happens only from an Origins import, the player should get the reference. If that's not enough, you could leave a letter on his dead body that explains it further.

If you save the guy, he gives you some money for your trouble and runs back to Kirkwall. After all, he's not going to tell you he's a Werewolf. You can also loot the dead Elves and find a similar letter referencing the events, along with some nice items, including a special Ironbark Bow.

That's how I'd look at it, but I'm neither a writer nor game developer. So I wouldn't know how difficult it is to put that in.

Modifié par CrustyBot, 19 avril 2012 - 04:47 .

[Leon481]

I agree with almost everything. The codex issue isn't so easy however. If taken out there needs to be some kind of replacement. One of the best parts of the games was all the lore that was unrelated to the actual plot. It needs to appear in some format. There's also the fact that it would be very, very hard to keep track of the huge number of sidequests without some way to track what you have completed.

I think the real problem with the codex was not the info it contained, but how it was completely seperate from the main game. It knew things that you hadn't been told yet and kept track of things that hadn't come up directly anywhere. Two things can fix all the problems with the codex:

1. Incorporate into the main game instead of a menu option. Make it something you actually have to examine in the game's world like a stack of books or a written journal. Actually make it a part of the world.

2. More importantly, nothing should be in the codex that you don't discover directly. No rumors you never heard or directions your MC has no way of knowing. It seriously breaks the immersion. Only ever add information when it comes up in dialogue or you find an entry. If there is ever any entry that appears from anything other than in game discovery it is not okay.