Sutekh wrote...
OK. First, I won't discuss Shepard because I know zilch about Mass Effect.
Gender is part of who Hawke is. To a much lesser extent, so is their appearance (scruffy, well-groomed, feminine etc...) and their class (a mage doesn't think like a warrior who doesn't think like a rogue). It doesn't matter whether the game addresses it or not. It's part of the characterization we can work with for roleplaying. If I tell you I came with different basic motivations and mindsets for my Hawkes based on those, then I did. Are you telling me that I didn't? That I was playing it wrong because for you it doesn't make any difference? Sorry to be a tad confrontational here, but I'm seriously fed up of people telling others they couldn't possibly have played like they did.
Well I'm glad you and whoever else was able to craft a Hawke into the image they wanted without Auto-Dialogue and pre-definition breaking the PC beyond repair, I wasn't one of them. i felt that most of the motives came from the writers and not the player, which isn't how it should be with a player-generated PC. I know you don't want to talk about Shepard, but I'm about too, sorry.
Shepard and Hawke are almost exactly the same. Both can be either gender, have customizable appearances, and can choose a class. However, neither can just ignore certain main quests, and both also have their motivations imposed upon them by the writers. Both suffer from an identity crisis of trying to be a character-generated PC while also being a constant pre-generated PC. When you take out everything that is up to the player, both are exactly like Geralt, they all have a certain goal, and can go about different ways of achieving that goal, but their motivation never changes.
As for motivations during the game itself, how many different Hawkes have you played? Not a rhetorical question, btw. I'd really like to know. Have you tried different classes, different genders, different romances? Have you tried siding with the *spoilers* in Act II? Against them? Betray *spoiler* in Act II finale? Fighting for her? Executing *spoiler* in Act III? Going all the way for the Templars to the point of executing *spoiler* while in love with him? Or being so smitten with the guy that you actually forgive him for what he's done? Do you honestly think the motivations would be the same for all those situations?
Only 2, male warrior Isabela romance, female mage Anders romance. I played them as complete opposites and yet all of their motivations felt the same to me. Act 1: get rich to protect someone from the *spoilers*, get involved in a siege to protect city, get involved in brewing*spoilers* to protect city. I simply couldn't apply any motivation to the PCs because certain quests I would've refused were forced on me.
True for the Dovahkiin. The Warden doesn't let you create a name any more than Hawke. You get to create the first name, and that's all. Last name is very much decided for you. If you want to play an elven mage and "Surana" doesn't speak to you, too bad. Every elven mages are Suranas.
The elven mages were not constantly refereed to a Surana though, when they talked to Alistair, he didn't call them Surana. Almost everyone refereed to Hawke by their surname. With the Warden, it was almost always "you" or something similar.
No, but it very much starts there. It's the moment when the protag is born, so to speak, when you, as a player, mark your territory. And Hawke's past isn't more defined than any of the Wardens' at the moment you start the game.
Hawkes age is clearly defined and his childhood is somewhat defined(grew up on the run and settled in Lothering where they lived on the edge of town). The Wardens age was in a certain spectrum, but was never explicitly given, and the childhood, while determined by the Orgin, is generally left untouched with plenty of room for player narrative, especially without Auto-Dialogue to contradict player narrative.
The problem with Hawke is that you only get one and only one past to choose from (with a slight variant), while there are six Wardens. Also, the first time gap doesn't help, since it gives you people you know and apparently don't like without you playing it or actually having any idea why you don't like them. Very "WTF?" Those are (very) big problems, but they don't make Hawke a preset character. They only make the plot a very railroaded one. However, you still have room to come with your own motivations, at some points. If you do multiple different playthroughs, the differences in experience are very obvious.
When the Auto-Dialogue railroads my PC into the opposite direction, I consider the PC narrative highly damaged, if not entirely ruined. I think of Hawke as preset since Hawke has only one background that is very limiting compared to the DAO backgrounds, especially since it already creates Hawke's relationship with the siblings.
First, there wasn't that much auto-dialog in DA2 (although I'm in the camp of one is too many). Second, that's the way it was implemented in DA2. It can be done differently. No paraphrases (or optional full line), no auto-dialog. No wheel, even.
I was in the camp that thought that every line spoken by Hawke was Auto-Dialogue since the player never explicitly consented to it. If they would have used a full-text like in DAO except with a voice, that would have worked well and I could have avoided the voiced PC. However when the dialogue is built around the Dialogue Wheel, it creates Auto-Dialogue intentionally.
You're basing your whole "it fails" judgement on one single example.
You must not have played Mass Effect or SWTOR then, because they both use the Dialogue Wheel(DA2 actually ripped the DW from ME) and it works almost exactly the same. It doesn't fail for me in ME since I was always convinced that Shepard was a pre-defined character and not a player-generated, but it is applied to a game that tries to have a player-generated, it fails.
Modifié par wsandista, 20 mai 2012 - 02:26 .
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