22 réponses à ce sujet

[FlyinElk212]

It seems as though Bioware's trying to create a continual storyline for the Dragon Age universe.

The problem is that, if they choose to have an ever-revolving door of Main Characters per each game, many players won't care long enough to see that storyline through.

Having 1 consistent protagonist in a series like this is crucially important: take Mass Effect's Commander Shepard, for example. While an avatar of a player and not precisely the player themselves, Commander Shepard created a unique, identifiable persona that everyone within the story and everyone watching the story could relate to, in some way, shape, or form. S/he is the gateway for the player into the universe, and in a sense, is the common bond through all 3 games that appealed to the player's pathos.

Some of the most phenomenal scenes in Mass Effect 3 involved the Final Goodbye's portion, where Shepard walked around to each squadmate and had a touching moment with them before the final battle. It was the culmination of over 100 hours and 3 games worth of dedication. By the end, we felt like the squadmates really became our friends; or family. It genuinely hurt to say goodbye. These guys had stuck by our main character until the bitter end, and the relationships we built with them throughout the series was nothing short of heartwrenching.

Now, try to apply a similar logic to the Dragon Age universe. There will never be a scene like the one I detailed above if the main character keeps changing throughout the series. With a changing protagonist the appeal to the player's pathos is greatly reduced, simply because we cannot fully sympathize with our MC's plight as strongly as we can with a consistent protagonist.

There will never be that common bond which has been with us since the beginning.

There will never be relationships between us (the MC) and our companions
that can be fully actualized and will genuinely hurt when the series is
over.

There will never be a point in which the long term consequences of difficult decisions can be realized from the perspective of the character who made them.

There will never be an opportunity to visit old friends and expound on the relationships we've built with them over the years.

There will never be full immersion into the Dragon Age universe since our perspective is forcibly changed per game.

There will never be pathos.

Bioware, it seemed as though you realized this issue when you created the character "Hawke". You were going to give the player that common bond that the universe so desperately needed- our appeal to pathos. Please do not go back on that ideal. Hawke was part of the problem in Dragon Age 2, but not the problem itself. Bring him back as an appeal to our pathos. Hawke needs to be the main character of Dragon Age 3.

[Allan Schumacher]

Huntress wrote...

I agree with you OP, but after seen what happen to Hawke and Shepard.. I don't know...

I get tired of players wanting depressing ends and killing the character that are worth keeping, the worst part is after they do that they try to indoctrinated you to see why their end is way better than your own...
Heck if there is nothing for this character to look for in the future why not kill them right after you create them?
Thats what a depressed person do, they finish themselves because there is nothing to look for.
in other note: I play games to win it and feel GOOD about it no the other way around.

I find this interesting as, for myself, games (especially RPG games) is more about experiencing a story.  Satisfying emotional engagement (of any kind) is what I seek from an RPG.  I typically do want to achieve my objectives (or at least some major ones), I don't see it as "not winning" if my character ends up dying or having something bad happen as a consequence for his actions throughout the game.  Vampire Bloodlines I thought did this quite well.  One of their endings gave me that sickly feeling because it was such a "let down" but I loved it for that.  If a game can illicit an emotional reaction out of me, then that makes it so much better.

Though I've learned lately, especially with the time I spent on the ME3 boards, that this isn't necessarily the same for a large group of gamers.  Especially given the attachment people get with their player characters.  I think it's a very interesting, and surprisingly difficult, situation to deal with.

The one thing I disagree with is the notion of whether or not there is anything for the character to look forward to, which is something that can only be ascertained once you know the story arc.  It's pure metagaming at this point since the player character can't know that he may be ultimately doomed by end game.  For myself though, the whole journey is what I appreciate the most.  If it has a potentially happy ending then yay, but if it's still a well done "downer" ending I like those just as well.  My two favourite RPGs (Fallout 1 and PST) have endings that are decidedly downer.

[Allan Schumacher]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
To be fair though, Vampire Bloodlines, Fallout 1 and PST all had the option of getting good endings as well. 

I think a "downer" ending is acceptable... if it is one of many. If Mass Effect 3 really did have the 16 truly different endings (as opposed to the 1 with different colors), then I think many people would be totally fine with a downer ending as a possibility, if it was accompanied by a truly great ending, if the character so decided and/or worked for it. The problem many gamers have at this point is that it seems more and more games are embracing the "downer" ending as the only ending option, which is truly unsatisfying.

First, I think it's important to qualify that I don't feel the ME3 endings are as bleak as many others do.  This was before the DLC was planned too.  Without getting into spoilers, I do see the endings as bittersweet where, at the very least MY Shepard, accomplished what he wanted to do.  From that standpoint, I don't see the endings to ME3 as being significantly more "downer" than PST's or Fallouts (games which I would disagree have "good endings."  This is probably mostly a semantic argument though).

With video games, though, it is very different. The amount of effort I put in, working to crafting the story the way I most wanted it, working at accomplishing goals as successfully (or even purposefully NON-successful) as I saw fit, trying my best to keep my character alive... these are all things that don't just make you feel emotion if things don't end well, but they devalue all the effort you put in. Reading a book or watching a movie takes minimal effort, just attention. A video game's neccesity of requiring the player to actually work makes the fact that if a game offers no satisfying conclusion, only loss and heartache no matter how hard the player tries, then it becomes a painful and wasteful experience.

I'll agree that a video game is more engaging for the reasons you describe.  Though I guess we'll just have to disagree for whether or not it's a painful and wasteful experience.  Different strokes for different folks.  IMO it's only wasteful if, when I reach the end of my playing, I considered the time spent in it to be irrelevant and uninteresting.

This is not only taking advantage of being one of the first video game series ever to take so many choices over the course of games and import them in, but it would also be a financial incentive, as sales of the first two games could have been through the roof if the "happily ever after" ending could only be achieved through a concerted effort over the course of all three games. People who just bought ME 3, or started on ME2 would then be very compelled to go out and buy the first games in the trilogy. Not that everything should tie back to money, but the current ending is not successful from a story-telling point of view, as it lead to only confusion, misinterpretation and dissatisfaction, but it also failed fto capitalize on this from a money-making point of view. Multiple endings, one of which would be a happliy-ever-after ending, could have done both.

It's hard to predict what effect it would have had on sales, and at this point it's something we'll just never know.

On a side note, its good to see you back on the forums Allen! We hadn't seen you in a while and, with the recent departure of Stanley Woo from Bioware, some of us had begun fearing the worst...

If it helps, Mr. Woo moved on because he sought other things in life and it was amicable.  I've just been busy with work and real life

[Allan Schumacher]

Oh! The Old God Baby! Please, BW. Please, I beg you...address this. I know not not everyobne did the dark ritual...but that's never stopped you before.

This is something that I have been thinking about the past few days actually.

I remember back in the day (before I was on this rocking chair telling kids to get off my lawn) when game imports were usually nothing more than stat/inventory imports, if they exist before. We typically had to accept that some decisions from the sequels were just canon.

People clearly like the idea of reactivity continuing into the next game, but how do we balance telling an interesting story that we want to create for the player, and creating choice?

The Old God Child is probably the biggest point, because it's one that those that did the ritual are definitely super interested in, but if we force a game plot to utilize it, then those that didn't choose it may feel marginalized and jaded that the choice wasn't reflected. At the same time though, I think fans would have been MORE upset if the dark ritual was forced. I suppose we could have had Morrigan forcibly do it with someone else, but that ship has sailed.

Discuss (and be gentle! >.>). I'll grab the popcorn. I may split this into a separate thread though if people want to run with it.

[Allan Schumacher]

Glad to see you mention it especially since based on one of Gaider's old
interviews, that's an issue that's just difficult to handle. 
Personally, I'm of the opinion that's honestly a plot point that would
be better off just retconning if it benefits the story even though
I have characters who did the ultimate sacrifice.  Also, there's no
telling if you can import saves onto the next generation of consoles, so
if you can't, you already have more than half(maybe 3/4 since there are
those who could play DA3, but didn't play DA2.  Then, you're still only
including those who did the ultimate sacrifice while the Dark Ritual
was the more popular option.) the fanbase not being able to import their
saves anyway.

Well, it depends on how we'd do any type of "decision import."

ME3 lets players loosely specify some of the stuff that could happen in earlier games during chargen and so forth. KOTOR 2 had a creative idea of incorporating it into dialogues and stuff like that. All losing a specific saved game import really does is restrict the granularity of the decisions to only the big decisions. So it'd be less likely to include if we hardened Alistair, but the Old God Baby is definitely one of the primary choices of DAO.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 30 mai 2012 - 10:56 .

[Allan Schumacher]

*Caveat - unless the games in question are a trilogy like Mass Effect. If you plan on a totally encapsulated series of games, where choices only need to be carried over for X amount of games, then this is possible. ME3 I think did a extremely good job of this in some respects, but in the majority of others it faltered in lieu of providing the same experience for everyone. Which is a shame, since as the planned trilogy of Bioware, it had the best chance of providing custom content depending on a myriad of actions that didn't have to take the longevity of the series into account.

I do agree that it is easier to do with plans for multiple games.

Fallout was actually one game I was specifically thinking of

[Allan Schumacher]

I could see that working in a similar manner.  Have you'll ever thought of including something like a checklist of choices a player could just pick before the game begins with a default start and one the players can customize, or would that be considered a bit too out there to include(like scaring away new players I suppose?)?

Depends entirely on how it is all set up.  With ME3 it was a bit more mandatory especially with Virmire and whatnot, but there are definitely alternatives we can do.

[Allan Schumacher]

Guys, This thread is about continuing Hawke as the main protagonist. But we're discussing the warden, Morrigan and OGB instead. Isn't that irrelevant?

I find threads evolve, but this tangent is created entirely by a question I posed (which I thought of while in this thread).

Would you rather I create a separate thread to discuss this topic further?

[Allan Schumacher]

I think I rather go for Brockololly's idea that choice A leads to exclusive path A and choice B leads to exclusive path B in a self-contained manner. Although I usually like The Ethereal Writer Redux' posts, I think his idea to replace events by alternate ones to keep the story on track (like keeping the OGB when the Warden was not involved and it got there by other means), may sound attractive, but is exactly what bothered me in ME3. In that game you could kill the rachni queen or not, but it really didn't matter, because when you killed her she was replaced by an artificial one created by the reapers. It played out much the same. You never saw the queen's troops fighting near the ending and at best Hackett told you that they were a great at working at the Crucible. Whether or not saving the rachni queen or whether or not performing the ritual, it kept posters busy for years speculating on the forums. You cannot wave such a main decision away by just letting it pass in a "by-the-way"-like conversation.

Consequences in the form of cameos do not cut it for me. There is one in which werewolves are attacked by elves. It only appears after the werewolves survived. You won't miss it when you made another decision. It has no impact either way. When there are a lot of those then it gets confusing at best. Oh, here they are. It looks like I sided with the werewolves. Or, if I take the next corner then I know whether this character sided with the werewolves. Or, after several playthroughs, cameos and dialogue line changes become nothing more than a background noise. Yes, I played the game more than once.

Drilling down and making this a bit more specific with respect to the OGB (since it was the example given).

How would you prefer to see it played out? My impression is as something optional for those that did it, and those that didn't do the ritual obviously don't see it. Would an OGB plot that is essential be frustrating if there was an explanation that Morrigan made it work through some other means (this would allow those that told Morrigan to pike off to still have this plot).

I have some more thoughts but I don't want to assume too much before going forward.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 31 mai 2012 - 11:03 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Wulfram wrote...

Take a look at people's reactions to the Rachni situation in ME3.

And that's a lot smaller choice than what is the big defining end choice of the game, and something that potentially our wardens gave their lives for.

The Rachni situation is part of what led to me asking this question.  Is part of the problem with the messaging though?  Or the implementation.  Had there been some sort of consequence for the Rachni choice in ME1, perhaps fans would have been more accepting?  As it stands, the only time you see a consequence of the Rachni decision is in ME3 (unless I'm mistaken).

In terms of messaging, if we state straight up that some choices are going to be canonized to allow for a tighter story, is that okay?  Essentially, were ME fans upset because the choice was meaningless, or was it more because they were led to believe it'd be more impactful than what was ultimately delivered.

[Allan Schumacher]

Ability to continue the story without canonizing anything is what distinguishes good writer from a bad one.

I think that that is a bit too blanket of a statement.  If that's what we get judged on it'll ultimately result in more conservative stories that have less chance of offering potentially divergent story.  Or at the very least, more railroading.  Would anyone here have preferred it if the Dark Ritual MUST be performed, or do people prefer to experience a game like DAO where they can make choices within that game, but they're okay with the fact that depending on the story that choice may not be reflected in future games?  Should we only allow choice if we intend to ensure that it can't be overridden in future games?

An advantage of making OGB canon would be that it would afford writing the possibility to greatly expand upon it if they wish.  If it's an option that cannot be canonized, it effectively marginalizes it to a side story at best unless we decide that Morrigan were able to still capture the Old God's essence through some other means.  It sounds like, at least for some people, this is actually worse because while they can accept "okay this is just canon, I've dealt with this before" it turns into "Well, Morrigan didn't really need the Warden or the Archdemon to perform this, so the fact that you didn't do it has no effect on anything."  This seems to be Wulfram's perspective which I think is just as valid of one.

If you canonize anything you might as well not bother making the game.

It wasn't an issue for fans of Baldur's Gate and I'm sure many would love a BioWare KOTOR 3 even if it took canon Revan and Exile.  I don't think this is actually the case.

I'm not certain this is entirely a good idea in terms of writing. It's probably just... well... a cheap way to do it.

Agreed that it seems a bit cheap.  While it'd maintain reactive cohesion with prior choices, does it actually make for a better game and a more interesting story?

[Allan Schumacher]

No, if the DR didn't happen, Morrigan has spent the last ten years seeking out another slumbering Old God and will try to take its soul by force. That is the "No OGB" plotline and the reason Flemeth gives the protagonist for the quest to kill Morrigan. The OGB plot involves Morrigan already having the OGB and Flemeth tells the protagonist that the soul of the Old God is a threat to all of Thedas.

Wouldn't this still be akin to making the OGB decision pointless and just be a different way of aggravating the customers for the same reason?

[Allan Schumacher]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...
Like I wrote before there could be an alternative for the opposite choice. However, it was BW that promised that our decisions would "shape the world". Not me. I am certainly not buying a DLC to deal with a choice that is supposed to be important. What's next? A DLC for the ending?

So if we provide any meaningful choice, you feel we should stick to it and if applicable, respect those choices and offer differing solutions for the choices that require it as necessary?  Obviously not every choice will have an impact, but if the leader of Ferelden makes an appearance, it should be Alistair if we made him King, otherwise the Anora (or the Warden)?

[Allan Schumacher]

Bioware has proven repeatedly over the years that it will change player decisions from game to game, in the interests of the continuation of a story over several games. It has done it already in DA2.

That's fair, but it did make fans upset. Ideally I know I prefer to NOT do that (I know I can't please everyone but if I can make more informed decisions it helps determine whether or not one's displeasure will be offset because it comes with the benefit of something more enjoyable as a result).

My solution for the future (too late to fix the OGB conflict): At the end of each game, after the Epilogue and the Credits, the game has a button that says "Click to learn which choices are Canon." The player can then check immediately to see which of his/her choices will continue into the next game. Or they can wait until they do some more play throughs. This will settle the matter immediately. Players can accept that not everything they did, will not show up later, as long as you give them ample warning. No more surprises.

Just to critically assess this, the first problem that comes to mind is that it would require some level of clairvoyance. Now something like the OGB is definitely more of a cliffhanger type of ending, so it's easier to decide on something like that. But unless we have fully detailed out the plot several games in advance, it could be hard to know which choices we feel would ultimately be best decided as needing canon or working while open ended.

I do agree that removing the surprise element will help with some feeling of outrage though.

Also, in the next game, at the beginning, as Dave of Canada suggested, you have a smorgasbord of choices, to select from, instead of an import of save information from the previous game.

As QA I support this simply because saved game generation can be a pain

[Allan Schumacher]

Personally, I would hate that. It would be akin to BioWare wagging their finger at you at the end of the game for having made the "wrong" choices and would kill my interest in replaying the game to make different choices. The fun in making choices in RPGs comes from getting into the head of your PC and weighing the pros and cons and possible outcomes that choice might bring. Canonizing stuff so blatantly at the end of the game would likely make the choice feel pointless, especially once people who finish the game no doubt go around the internet and spoil people that choice A is the canon choice so there is no reason to do choice B.

I wanted to respond to this part because I think this is where I trip up. Fallout 1 is one of the best, most open ended RPGs I've ever played, and the fact that Fallout 2 takes things as canon does not in the slightest make me feel that I'm handcuffed in my decisions while playing Fallout 1.

Have the expectations now changed? Or are there people that now feel that they shouldn't bother replaying Fallout 1 or 2 in the myriad of ways you can play through them because the decisions made "don't matter."

Yes, Allan. That's the idea. It looks like people feel they miss out on content. So I have added the alternative as a solution for that. Personally, I wouldn't mind if there wasn't an alternative for all. That's because there will be more than one choice that gets a consequence. That number and the quality of the content can be balanced.

Would it still be acceptable to have the game be shorter to compensate for all of this? How short can we go if we make up for it with excellent reactivity and replayability?

[Allan Schumacher]

The Warden can easily survive without the OGB, simply by having Alistair/Loghain sacrifice themselves.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The Warden can easily survive without the OGB, simply by having Alistair/Loghain sacrifice themselves.

But I never choose to subsitute Loghain/Alistair. Although I know that is true, I can't avoid thinking who was this warden that Leliana was speaking about. It obvious to me, Leliana is not referring to my warden. That's the problem.

I was just responding to the statement that the Warden cannot possibly survive without the OGB.

[Allan Schumacher]

2. ) On the other hand, what about those people who don't buy Awakening? You do realize that Awakening is optional and not the main DAO's campaign? I didn't buy both Legacy and Mark of the Assassin, I'm worried it would effect events in DA 3 as well.

I never played any of ME2's DLC, but didn't mind that they were considered canon. Wouldn't this just be a reasonable incentive for people to pick up DLC? I understand that there are people that have innate reservations against DLC (I rarely pick them up myself, but for different reasons I suspect), but given that they are effectively a type of expansion pack, is there any real reason for not allowing the events that transpired to be events that canonically happen?

[Allan Schumacher]

Thats true. I guess to some extent it comes with the expectations. Having canon in something like Fallout to Fallout 2 works in part because the games are taking place a good amount of time apart, distancing itself from Fallout 1 to some extent. And it establishes the canon stuff from the onset. Similar to BG1 to Bg2 establshing the canon from the onset. Whereas with DA, its established the import feature in DAO to DA2.

Interesting. Thanks for the feedback and valid response.

Sure. Just look at Alpha Protocol. Its shorter but the sheer amounts of variation you can have in characters and events is fantastic. Or The Witcher 2- in a single playthrough its no doubt shorter than The Witcher, but to really see the whole story you need to play it twice and its totally worth it to play it twice to experience the unique content. I think the key is making sure the unique content is truly unique and not just slight variations of dialogue or a Rachni queen type variation in ME3.

Now, I love Alpha Protocol. But I do know that some complained it was too short. They also complained that the game mechanics were clunky (which I found interesting, as they reminded me a lot of ME1), and they hated the timed conversations. All of these are horrible horrible and unjust reasons IMO as the writing and divergence in the game was faaaantastic. I was so sad that the game wasn't more successful.

Essentially, the unfortunate thing is that the game wasn't really a success. So even if the game length wasn't a huge deal overall, I'm worried if I point to it as an example I won't see as much traction. Same with the original Fallout for that matter, which is also a great example of a replayable game.

Unfortunately, I also see that Bio fans often seem to feel our games should be in the 60ish hour range. Games like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, which much of our core hold up as our best games, are games that are typically considered long and engaging and not because of their variations upon replaying the game. Would it be too much of a change from what people expect from a BioWare game?

[Allan Schumacher]

What about The Witcher 2 then? He cited it as an example of divergent gameplay, and wasn't that game successful?

Unfortunately I haven't played The Witcher 2 so I'm not qualified to comment

I didn't care much for The Witcher and was kind of turned off when people told me it had fantastic combat and I was wholly underwhelmed. I still plan on going back to it, but right now it's a few slots down on the queue.

You guys were experimenting with change in DA2, and still are if some of the conversations we've seen regarding the next game are anything to go by (eg. companion armour). Why stop there?

Fair point

[Allan Schumacher]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...
Heh, fair enough. If it's any consolation I didn't care for the combat in either game. It's always the story and characters that make or break an RPG for me. Combat's more of a necessary evil of the genre (I don't suck at it, I just rarely find it fun).

Like Brok said though, TW2's divergent stories were really well done. There were some seemingly innocuous choices that could change the entire landscape as well as the people within it. It made you feel like things you did mattered, even some of the stuff you didn't think would. Whether they carry any of those choices forward into future games though, who knows?

I agree.  I'd rather have simple combat, like a KOTOR (Flurry spam), which makes me feel badass.  For me, RPGs (especially "Western RPGs") are all about decisions and character interaction.  This is why I can overlook the gameplay faults of Alpha Protocol and consider it one of the best games I've played in recent years.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 02 juin 2012 - 06:52 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Brockololly wrote...

Well, like you said, I don't think the reason for AP's commercial failure was necessarily the writing or story elements. It was reviewers panning it for thinking it would play like Gears of War and instead it played like the stat based shooter it was, like ME1 or the original Deus Ex.

Yeah, I also compare it to the original Deus Ex as well haha.  Although I heard doing the conversations was actually quite a nightmare for writers and cin designers.  Though maybe (hopefully) it was more a tools related issue and could be iterated on.

True, but I also know many people with DAO and DA2 complained of sections of the game they felt were overly bloated with filler to pad the game's length- the endless wave combat in DA2 or the Fade and Deep Roads in DAO. So I guess its a quality over quantity issue. Mind you, I had no problem with the Fade or Deep Roads (at least in my first playthrough).

I think DA2 suffers from this a bit more, though DAO is a longer game.  DAO's length to me is more of a "errr.... I don't know if I haev the time for multiple playthroughs of this..." but at least for the first playthrough, I think it did a better job of keeping me fully engaged for the entire length.

Again, I guess you could look at the shift in The Witcher to The Witcher 2. TW1 doesn't have the huge plot divergence that TW2 has, and is a longer game for it in a single playthrough- 40-60 hours probably. While TW2 is decidedly shorter in a single playthrough, maybe 30-40 hours. But the split in the narrative isn't just some minor dialogue changes or flavor difference; it is quite literally a completely different experience. So after you've finished the game once, you really haven't finished the game. And its brilliant how seeing the other half of the narrative can then color how you viewed your initial playthrough, as you gain new insights into certain characters that aren't possible in one run of the game.

I like a longer game as much as anybody, but if the unique content and variance felt meaningful while you were playing, then I'm at least ok with the game being shorter.

Tangentially, with how TW2 approached the narrative if they canonize one of the paths for The Witcher 3, I wouldn't mind as much, since they're both great examples of showing consequences to your actions in the game and not leaving them for cliffhangers for sequels.You walk away feeling really satisifed with what you've experienced in the game. The cliffhangers to The Witcher 2 are common plot threads that everyone gets going forward.

But you should definitely try The Witcher 2. Its not perfect by any stretch, but it does a lot of things pretty damn well

I'm actually quite intrigued by The Witcher 2 now.  I *should* play it since frankly it's good to see what other companies are doing because good ideas are good ideas.

Do you think I should motivate myself to continue with The Witcher first?

[Allan Schumacher]

I just need to go into it expecting the combat to be kind of lame. I might just play on a lower difficulty.