Sir JK wrote...
Thank you.
I largely agree. We seem, to be saying a lot of things using different interprepation of words. I, for one, seem to have a much wider definition of "assumed motive". Since you do not consider ambigous motives to be assumed motives, and I do.
The value,as I see it, of creating quests where the PC takes a Integral role (same definitions as last post). The value is that the PC's emotions and thoughts become pivotal to that quest by design. As you point out, it is not neccessary for the Inferred Story since the player will add life as necessary. But it allows the game itself to provide you with more tools to do so.
Rather than just knowing that your character was struck by grief, this does in theory allow your character to express that in game and have the NPC around them react to that
Gently nudging my oar back into the conversation, I'm going to pluck out a couple of DA:O moments.
There is no way to do this without partial spoilers for DA:O content, so if anyone reading has any concerns about that please skip past this post. And also go and play DA:O, as its a truly excellent game.
The first is the Dark Ritual, as we've already discussed. One of the reasons that this always felt emotionally charged to me was because of how it was introduced, and the relationship with the characters involved (proposed by a character you've spent 85%+ of the game with, potentially impacting another you've spent even longer with, both with particularly strong views - but also an acceptance that there is a significant benefit attached).
One of the characters may be a love interest, which could add additional emotional charging to the situation. The consequences being vague and clear that you'll have no influence in them also presents an interesting moral dilemma. Your choices either way have a very profound impact in determining how the game concludes, and whether one of your characters will jump ship (shortly after a similar moment, in fact). That entire part of the game mixes bittersweet moments into the story near its conclusion, and is fantastically well done.
The reason it works is that its at the endgame. If the same discussion had happened after Lothering, it would have had virtually no emotional impact. The player would not have had time to engage with the companions and form emotional attachments (or disattachments) to them. The only way to add emotional impact would have been to force a motivation / emotion onto the player because the player wasn't in a position to really apply one themselves. This is essentially what DA2 did shortly before Flemeth shows up for the first time.
The other moment(s) are when Dwarven characters meet a character from their past during the Gauntlet during the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest, and when they return to Orzammar and (re)engage with its politics. The situation is emotionally charged because you were caught up heavily in it before you left, and in both cases are left to deal with other people's Loghain-esque betrayals that pushed you into the Wardens.
Irrespective of what you might 'want' to achieve, you can find yourself having to fight and kill characters who had a significant place in your past, who you might have liked a lot. Short of being a heartless character ruled by anger and vengeance, who would still be satisfied with the situation, its hard to see how there wouldn't be an emotional effect.
Running into Cullen as a female mage, or Velenna (Awakenings) as a Dalish, or coming back to the alienage as a City Elf were all interesting moments, but lacked the same emotional impact because your influence as a character was much lower - and the consequences of your decisions much milder.
The recurring theme through those points is that the emotional impact on the character / player was not forced. Situations were designed and planned that allowed this to happen because the people and/or the situation involved had emotional attachments and meaning to the player (or his character).
Players had a relatively broad brush approach to dialogue choices, and didn't have full control of the consequences. But they were never told to feel a certain way, or made to express to the game that they felt a certain way. The emotional impact happened to the player alone.
Would it have been better if your character had reacted further...if the Commoner plunged to her knees in tears after being forced to kill her closest friend, having seen life outside of Dust Town and pitying the situation he'd been in. Or shrugging off comments of shock or sympathy from others with irritation...and would that brusque Warden mean it, or would it be a "[Lie] Its nothing...lets just move on" followed by them greiving for their lost friend privately, and alone, somewhere else.
...but what if the Warden who deeply regretted it wasn't the type for public displays of crying, even if she'd openly admit her grief to others? What if the Warden who lied wouldn't actually express her grief by crying alone. What if the brusque Warden wasn't being cold or bloodthirsty, but simply accepted that life in Dust Town had its way of life, and its consequences.
For this to work without accidentally forcing emotion, or motivation, onto the player we would need far more finesse and control over how the dialogue system in DA presents what our characters are doing and thinking.
That's probably not a likely step for the time being - but without it, any attempt to 'ensure' a motivation emerges for a player will either be reliant on emergent narrative and the player / character's developed emotional connections - or it has to be parachuted in, with the reasonable chance that the way the game interprets and expresses motivations and emotions will clash with the motivations players actually had in mind.
Edit: Typically, the grief discussion stepped on a bit while I was typing. Apologies if this post now seems slightly out of kilter with the thinking in the last couple of posts. :innocent:
Modifié par Wozearly, 24 mai 2012 - 06:53 .
Retour en haut
