92 réponses à ce sujet

[Direwolf0294]

On the subject of party size and companions, I really hope BioWare moves away from the holy trinity mmo group set up in DA3. I hated being forced to take certain companions I didn't like in DA:O because I needed a tank or a healer or dps to complement the rest of my group. It wasn't as bad in DA2 because I found the companions a lot more enjoyable personality wise and because healers were nerfed hard in that game so you could go without one but it was something that was still present. In a story driven game I'd rather pick my companions based on their personalities and what they can add to the story rather than what class they are. Also having to bring a rogue along to open lock boxes sucked. I liked the suggestion someone had about being able to bash the lock boxes open with your weapon or open them with magic. Hopefully that's something that's added to DA3.

[AkiKishi]

Cultist wrote...

That supports my position on Voiced Protagonist as a feature that harmed DA franchize.
But, low male voice could be applied to both Elf, Human and Dwarf. Adam from Deus Ex is a good example. Also - there are billions of options to implement various audio filters in the game to adjust a voice.

It's still going to cost more,even if you have the same actor doing twice the lines. Can't say for sure but the actors union would have something to say about digitally altering the voice, so I doubt that would be a cost free option.

This has always been the downside of CRPGs going cinematic. If anyone ever wrote an NWN scenerio, it only takes a couple of minutes to script a new line. If you wanted to voice that line, you have to get an actor, arrange a schedule, pay them, record it etc. Muiltiply that by the number of lines in the game and it's quite a daunting task itself.

The more variables you add the more the cost and the time required increases.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 27 avril 2012 - 09:01 .

[Malsumis]

the_one_54321 wrote...
I doubt they would be allowed to comment on this right now, given that they have confirmed VA for the PC in DAIII.

Oh for crying out loud. It's like bioware is trying find ways to waste resources.

PC VO is a high cost low reward scenario.

[nightscrawl]

syllogi wrote...

happy_daiz wrote...

I'm female and 5'10, and I wish female PCs could be depicted as being as tall as the male version. We're not all delicate flowers, you know.

Ha, I'm 5'2, and I've always wanted to be tall.  But I often imagine my female player characters to be shorties too.  Not that I roleplay them as delicate, just that if I have to suffer with asking for help with high shelves, they do too.

LOL.

I'm 5'0 so I like the idea of a short character, but sometimes short is just... too short. In real life and in games. Ideally, we would be able to have a frame slider like in Guild Wars, but with the cinematics being so involved as John describes, I doubt we'll get that anytime soon. Some of the Fenris kissing still is a bit off, and that is with just one size.

In the Dragon Age games, the height difference between male and female humans is only a couple of inches, which I think makes for a pleasant visual contrast.

I'm not sure about the male elves in DA2 however, because they slouch. It's really annoying to stop walking and Fenris stands there slouching. My mother made a humorous comment the other day blaming it on the huge sword he's lugging around. Because of his slouching, he's the same height as my girl Hawke!

Ria wrote...

The significant differences are in accents and those can be defined by your background. Origins in DAO were so varied that yeah, perhaps British accent wouldn't have worked for all of them. But couldn't Bioware give us race options while limiting the background ("origin") options so that it would make sense to have the same accent for all character options. This seems like a reasonable compromise, unless a) it doesn't fit to the story they are planning or the cost of different models, animations and story alterations still makes multiple races too expensive. It may not be an ideal solution but it's better than being stuck with only humans.

Bioware painted themselves into a corner with the accents -- see my post about accents. It's not a bad thing as far as NPCs go, it really adds a lot of flavor and variety to Thedas. But as they implemented the voiced PC, it has the potential to be a problem.

As far as actors go, you can certainly hire actors who can do a variety of accents as well as tones. Gideon Emery (Fenris) also does that wimpy Templar Paxley and the dwarf that explains the explosives during Finding Nathaniel. He also did several dwarves and humans in DAO. Let me tell you, it's really hard to spot him, he's that good. Most of the time I can catch it because I've heard Fenris speaking so often, and because I'm looking for him to be there. The key is versatility! Some actors have it, and some don't, but that's what auditions are for.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 27 avril 2012 - 10:05 .

[Sejborg]

BobSmith101 wrote...

On the flip side. A large party.

Advantages

More chance of a character you like
A lot of choice both in social and gameplay
Allows for odd party mixes
Replaying means you can have a different combination of characters.

Disadvantages.

Hard to balance
Lines will be spread thin meaning shallower characters (remember 50% of the PC lines are already accounted for).
Easy to screw yourself by choosing the wrong party for a particular encounter. A bow heavy party and a rock golem come to mind..
Characters will have very little direct interaction with the plot or will have to be forced on you at specific points.
More work, in modeling and cutscenes which take a lot of time.

I prefer the large party. No doubt.

As for the balance issues. I don't think players should to forced to make a squad of 4 that fits the challenges they will experiecne during a quest. With a locked companion, or by having a small variaty of companions to choose from, you take away the players influence. If a player chooses to go with 3 archers and a supportive mage, then so be it. That player will most likely get her ass kicked. If such a squad get's killed constantly then it is just too bad for that player. She made a stupid choice when selecting companions. The game can give help tips, and suggest that taking a good variety of classes in your squad is most likely the best, but it should be up to player.

If I have levelled my companions in a certain way to fit eachother, and so I am now rolling with a squad of 3 mages and a rogue, that really fits my weird playstile, then that is just way cooler for me, than having been forced to have a more normal playstile. I have developed my own playstile and I am having fun with that. Being sort of forced to have a certain playstile with tank, rogue dps. mage healer and mage dps, is just not as fun. It should be the players choice to go with that layout and have that playstile. 

Selecting a good squad that works well together is part of the challenge. Finding weird squad combinations and a playstile that works can be really fun. 

[AkiKishi]

Malsumis wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
I doubt they would be allowed to comment on this right now, given that they have confirmed VA for the PC in DAIII.

Oh for crying out loud. It's like bioware is trying find ways to waste resources.

PC VO is a high cost low reward scenario.

Yes and no. If not being voiced pushes the sales below the cost of paying voice actors it's a bad idea. Obviously we can say DA and use it's sales. But by game standards thats now a really old game and things have moved on. I prefer the Japanese part voiced games myself. Games like KOA work fine as long as the protagonist is just conversing. But when you are required to make a speech, it falls appart.

[5trangeCase]

They can't have confirmed VA for DA3 because they haven't confirmed DA3. They are winking so hard their eyes hurt, but there's a reason that they haven't confirmed it.

[nightscrawl]

5trangeCase wrote...

They can't have confirmed VA for DA3 because they haven't confirmed DA3. They are winking so hard their eyes hurt, but there's a reason that they haven't confirmed it.

So, the multitude of times the devs have said "we are sticking with a voiced PC" has no influence with you at all, despite no confirmation of DA3?

This really makes me think that some people are sitting in front of their computers, fingers crossed, chanting "please, please, pleeeeeeeeeeease, take out the voice!" And yes, the day they announce they are going back to a silent PC in the next game I will make a forum post detailing how wrong I was in a very contrite manner, and I'll even link to this very post.



Mike and David at PAX East...

Q: So let's say, for the sake of argument, I'm one of those jerks that actually didn't care about no voice acting in Dragon Age: Origins for the Warden, and liked more options in dialogue, and liked all the different origins and everything, because it helped allow me to picture that person as MY character, no matter what origin I chose, no matter what paths I took in the game, I felt like it was MY Grey Warden; whereas you have Dragon Age II, and you have Mass Effect, and it always feels like it's BioWare's Hawke, or BioWare's Shephard, that no matter what choices I make it's not MY character. It's just, I'm kind of directing someone else's character along. In this new Dragon Age, are you going to try and at least make some sort of a compromise in there, or is it "More people preferred the Shephard and Hawke approach," so that's pretty much where you're gonna go?

A Mike: So first off, that's not a jerky question. I mean, we've gone back and forth. I think, sometimes people wonder "Like, well, do we just arbitrarily make these decisions?" And no... no, God no. We --

A David: We argue about them.

A Mike: Yeah, so much. But what we've found is it seems like it's a pretty even split for people in experience strictly about the voice over. Last time we looked it was about 60/40 pro-voice, people found they could get behind it, the scenes played better, that kind of thing. Which is fine, however, and I think we WILL stick with voice, just to be honest, it's what we prefer, it works better with our systems. However, I think that all the other points about being able to pick something more in the background, or having more variety in things to say, or potentially even going deeper and saying, giving you a situation in which you have multiple approaches to feel like you're crafting that character. Which is very much what I think Origins did, where even if you hadn't had the different origin stories, you'd still have been able to go in and feel like "Wow, I took this adventure in a different way and a different order," and so on. I think we need to make sure we're doing a better job of that in the future so that the character does feel more like they're yours.

A David: We're talking about the presentation of the dialogue wheel as well. Exactly how we do paraphrases, if we do paraphrases, and things like that. It is a fundamental choice of design though. I mean, at the end of the day, if somebody cannot feel that a voiced character is theirs, I mean (shrug)... that is the kind of game that we were making.

A Mike: Yeah, but if at the same time someone feels that a voiced character isn't theirs because the paraphrases aren't clear enough, or --

A David: That we can work on.

A Mike: Or he punched a guy when I just said "I like cake," you know (laughs), unless it's Hawke's mom presumably... then we need to make sure, that there is simply a technical thing for us to fix and to find new ways to present clarity of action, intent, and information. The icons we thought helped to some degree, to give you a sense of the tone you'd pick. Having a sarcastic tone gave us more variety. But I think there's still lots of room to maneuver and to see what we can do. We're doing experiments on that kind of stuff right now.

Mike 11 months ago...

There's lots of refinement to do, and some missteps that we need to address, but I think that there are a number of things DAII did right, or, possibly, almost right. Player VO, rivalry, and the responsiveness of combat all fall into that category for me (so, no, we won't be going back to a silent protagonist, for instance).

Mike 1 month ago...

Q: Will we be going to silent protagonist?
A: A few months back, I noted that we'd be continuing on a voiced protagonist. We feel the voice improves the overall experience, thought we know that some of your disagree. Sorry! STILL, we have, however, heard feedback on paraphrase clarity. What I've often seen is feedback that the paraphrases fail when your character DOES something unexpected. Would you folks agree that moments of action or major choice are the issue that most needs to be addressed?

Modifié par nightscrawl, 27 avril 2012 - 12:36 .

[Dakota Strider]

Yes, they keep saying they plan to go voiced. Which is sad, because they have also confirmed that going voiced reduces the amount of game content, because of the resources it takes to do a voiced protagonist.
 No voice = more game
 Voice = less game
  Simple as that.

Modifié par Dakota Strider, 27 avril 2012 - 12:36 .

[AkiKishi]

I don't know why they don't go with partial voicing. Voice the dramatic bits, don't voice the conversations.

[nightscrawl]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Characters will have very little direct interaction with the plot or will have to be forced on you at specific points.

This is an interesting point. The first couple of times I played DA2 I went almost exclusively with Fenris, Anders, and Varric is my constant party followers. The only time I switched out was to do a specific companion quest.

I haven't changed too much, and still prefer the same companions most of the time. However, I've since gone to not having Anders around nearly as much, primarily for RP reasons (especially when I am playing a mage). Having a nice selection of follower classes to choose from is quite nice in this regard. You can take who you like personality wise, or tailor to your playstyle. In Act 1 you can choose to blow things up with a groups of 4 mages if you want.

I think that kind of freedom adds to replayability.

[Sejborg]

BobSmith101 wrote...

I don't know why they don't go with partial voicing. Voice the dramatic bits, don't voice the conversations.

Because it's weird?

[AkiKishi]

Sejborg wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

I don't know why they don't go with partial voicing. Voice the dramatic bits, don't voice the conversations.

Because it's weird?

Well outside of SquareEnix et al. It's been the JRPG staple for years. I play a lot of them so I may be more used to it.I find both the limitations of having to fully voice everything and the WTF moments of silence to be much more of a negative.

Xenoblade for example is part voiced and you can fit Dragon Age2 into it many times over. It still has branching conversations and quest dynamics. But only the scenes are voiced.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 27 avril 2012 - 01:02 .

[Zexiv]

Direwolf0294 wrote...

On the subject of party size and companions, I really hope BioWare moves away from the holy trinity mmo group set up in DA3. I hated being forced to take certain companions I didn't like in DA:O because I needed a tank or a healer or dps to complement the rest of my group. It wasn't as bad in DA2 because I found the companions a lot more enjoyable personality wise and because healers were nerfed hard in that game so you could go without one but it was something that was still present. In a story driven game I'd rather pick my companions based on their personalities and what they can add to the story rather than what class they are. Also having to bring a rogue along to open lock boxes sucked. I liked the suggestion someone had about being able to bash the lock boxes open with your weapon or open them with magic. Hopefully that's something that's added to DA3.

I don't think this is something that really needs to change from a design perspective for the most part the Tank, DPS, Healer set is there because it works well strategically but you're not locked into it. You can decide to do something different and you may or may not succeed.  Once mages get up to a high enough level you could instead play 2 Crowd Control mages and 2 DPS (rogue or THW).  I think DAO and DA2 both allowed alot of freedom in the way you built your party members which opens the door to making good or bad builds but to me this is not an aspect I'd want to see changed.

As for the locks I'd not mind seeing different talent levels of bash lock,  or knock spells for mages just put them on the same, or slightly behind, attribute to talent curve as the rogue doing lock picking.

Take it easy

Modifié par Zexiv, 27 avril 2012 - 01:52 .

[nightscrawl]

BobSmith101 wrote...

But only the scenes are voiced.

... Can you give an example?

In DA2 every conversation is a "scene," so I don't know how this would even apply with the way they've designed the game based around these conversations. It was the same structure in DAO, only we had the silent PC.

If you were to use DA2 as the template, what scenes would be voiced versus those that would be silent?

[Sejborg]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Sejborg wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

I don't know why they don't go with partial voicing. Voice the dramatic bits, don't voice the conversations.

Because it's weird?

Well outside of SquareEnix et al. It's been the JRPG staple for years. I play a lot of them so I may be more used to it.I find both the limitations of having to fully voice everything and the WTF moments of silence to be much more of a negative.

Xenoblade for example is part voiced and you can fit Dragon Age2 into it many times over. It still has branching conversations and quest dynamics. But only the scenes are voiced.

Ok. For me at least it would be weird, but I don't play JRPG's so that might be the reason. Even back when I played Baldurs Gate I found it weird that some parts of a conversation was silenced. When that happens it gives me a feeling that the game is incomplete. That might be unreasonable expecially for the time, but there you have it. 

It is expensive to have everything voiced. But it can also be expensive to never invest resources and really give it all you have and then some to make every detail just right. 

Alot of the talk on these forums seems to have this reasoning:

Can Bioware afford to ______? Fill in the blank with whatever you like. Can Bioware afford to:
"having a complete voice over", 
"Make better graphics/aesthetics",
"have diverse environments",
"have many companions",
"make sexscenes",
"have origins",
"have race selection"
"make more than one male and female bodytype"
and so on.

I think the reasoning should be:
Can Bioware afford to not ______? And then you fill in the blank. I think Bioware needs to step up, or else people might just stop buying Dragon Age games. Bioware needs to make a game that blows DA2 out of the water. Anything less than stellar and I think this franchise will crash and burn. 

[Sacred_Fantasy]

They have experiment with DA 2 and we all agree it's not stellar. Therefore if they still using the same experiment, this franchise will crash and burn. So guys, please let's not discuss the same experimental idea. Let's talk about new way to improve the companions and game design. Let's discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using OP's model, shall we?

[whykikyouwhy]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

They have experiment with DA 2 and we all agree it's not stellar.

We do not all agree.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

whykikyouwhy wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

They have experiment with DA 2 and we all agree it's not stellar.

We do not all agree.

So you think DA 2 is stellar?   

[whykikyouwhy]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

whykikyouwhy wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

They have experiment with DA 2 and we all agree it's not stellar.

We do not all agree.

So you think DA 2 is stellar?   

Well, I did four playthroughs. I'd say it was quite stellar.

The thing is, it's really not fair or accurate to make such broad generalizations as "we all" with regard to anything. 

Modifié par whykikyouwhy, 27 avril 2012 - 02:12 .

[Sacred_Fantasy]

whykikyouwhy wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

whykikyouwhy wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

They have experiment with DA 2 and we all agree it's not stellar.

We do not all agree.

So you think DA 2 is stellar?   

Well, I did four playthroughs. I'd say it was quite stellar.

"Quite" Stellar?  Whatever. Have it your way then.

. 

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 27 avril 2012 - 02:14 .

[Zexiv]

Sejborg wrote...

Alot of the talk on these forums seems to have this reasoning:

Can Bioware afford to ______? Fill in the blank with whatever you like. Can Bioware afford to:
"having a complete voice over", 
"Make better graphics/aesthetics",
"have diverse environments",
"have many companions",
"make sexscenes",
"have origins",
"have race selection"
"make more than one male and female bodytype"
and so on.

I think the reasoning should be:
Can Bioware afford to not ______? And then you fill in the blank. I think Bioware needs to step up, or else people might just stop buying Dragon Age games. Bioware needs to make a game that blows DA2 out of the water. Anything less than stellar and I think this franchise will crash and burn. 

They might have already come to an answer or maybe they're partially still looking at and incorperating feedback while weighting those factors.  My guess is based on requests, forum feedback, email feedback, etc features would be or were given a weighting that they either have used or will be used to determine high level marketing requirements for the product. so for example from all the cut  and paste DA2 quest feedback it was deemed Diverse Environments would be required and commented on at PAX.  (I think this would be one of the highest costs man power wise for the project due to needing to make several  environments/quests  while avoiding reusing areas as much as possible.) 

The added feedback of late could be along the lines of they (fans) didn't see comments on topic Q-Z from PAX twittter etc so fans (even those that don't like DA2) are sharing there thoughts. I read one of the ME3 articles that summed it up well if you weren't a fan of the series you'd just walk away from the product.  There are businesses that I've decided not to purchase from again due to either products or services without ever saying a thing. 

On the other hand because we are fans of DA or Bioware in general our preference is that they succeed and as such people have opted to discuss what is important to them for the next game.  DA3 will be interesting sense the two factions at times seem fairly far apart so it will be interesting to see how that split in the fan base is reconciled or if the split leads to one side opting to walk away.


Take it easy

Modifié par Zexiv, 27 avril 2012 - 02:43 .

[AkiKishi]

nightscrawl wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

But only the scenes are voiced.

... Can you give an example?

In DA2 every conversation is a "scene," so I don't know how this would even apply with the way they've designed the game based around these conversations. It was the same structure in DAO, only we had the silent PC.

If you were to use DA2 as the template, what scenes would be voiced versus those that would be silent?

Well as you probably know stories in JRPGs are told in cutscene form. These tend to be voiced. The gameplay related conversations tend not to be. In Xenoblade specifically, conversations between towns people and party members that have multiple outcomes are silent, those that tell the story are voiced.

In DA terms, it would be anything where the character is projecting and not just conversing. Landsmeet for example sticks out badly in DA because of the lack of a voice. In KOA (most recent "silent" PC game I've played) the speech as you cross to Mel Senshir being given by another character, or the "speech" you give to rouse the troops is another place where not having a voice lessens the experience.

[AkiKishi]

Sejborg wrote...
Ok. For me at least it would be weird, but I don't play JRPG's so that might be the reason. Even back when I played Baldurs Gate I found it weird that some parts of a conversation was silenced. When that happens it gives me a feeling that the game is incomplete. That might be unreasonable expecially for the time, but there you have it. 

It is expensive to have everything voiced. But it can also be expensive to never invest resources and really give it all you have and then some to make every detail just right. 

Alot of the talk on these forums seems to have this reasoning:

Can Bioware afford to ______? Fill in the blank with whatever you like. Can Bioware afford to:
"having a complete voice over", 
"Make better graphics/aesthetics",
"have diverse environments",
"have many companions",
"make sexscenes",
"have origins",
"have race selection"
"make more than one male and female bodytype"
and so on.

I think the reasoning should be:
Can Bioware afford to not ______? And then you fill in the blank. I think Bioware needs to step up, or else people might just stop buying Dragon Age games. Bioware needs to make a game that blows DA2 out of the water. Anything less than stellar and I think this franchise will crash and burn. 

I would say the goal is to get the best product at the best cost. Not the best product at any cost. That's self defeating.
If having fully voiced PCs mean going from a 60 hour to a 30 game. That's quite a step back.

Bioware does not really have any competition , the closest would be Obsidian who just don't have their budget. And CDPR who are just getting into the spot light.
Bethesda do their own thing, and they do it very well judging from how Skyrim performed.
Unless you go to Japan there is a derth of RPG/Strategy games anyway.

With todays technology the ambition of a game like BGII is a bit of a pipe dream I think. That's not to say that there is not a huge ammount that could be improved from DA2 , project focus seems to be a failing with Bioware. Saw it in DA2 and in ME3.

That may happen anyway just from the fallout of DA2 and ME3. It's an uphill climb for DA3 anyway you look at it.

[Sejborg]

BobSmith101 wrote...


I would say the goal is to get the best product at the best cost. Not the best product at any cost. That's self defeating.
If having fully voiced PCs mean going from a 60 hour to a 30 game. That's quite a step back.

And what is the best product at the best cost? DA:O was so good it resulted in a record amount of preorders for DA2. Or do you think DA2 looked so good by it self that people just had to preorder it?

DA2 came of as incredible cheap. Reused maps and what not. It sold great for what it was. Will DA3 also sell great for another piece of left handed work? Is the reasoning: It's not a great game and it didn't sell much. But we invested so little ressources in it that we still made a profit. Because sure, that's a succes.

If you constantly look for ways to cut corners and even cut things out of your game because things need to cost as little as possible, then you will keep ending up with a halfassed product, and you will never be able to push the bounderies and amaze anyone else but the biggest fangirls. Why strive for lackluster instead of perfection? Because lackluster is both achievable and cheap?

Modifié par Sejborg, 27 avril 2012 - 03:46 .