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[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Though Deus Ex is a different type of choice.  The narrative only has a few places of actual choice (especially with consequence), but the gameplay choice is probably still unparalleled.  So well done!

Gameplay choice matters.  Gameplay is part of the emergent narrative.

So is exploration.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 08 juin 2012 - 10:28 .

[AkiKishi]

Wulfram wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...


How do you roleplay a character without having exhaustive knowledge of that character's mind?  Explain that to me.  Please, someone, explain that to me.  How do you know which option is appropriate without knowledge everything about that character's beliefs, values, and goals?  How do you weight possibly conflicting objectives against each other

I usually start out with my PC rather ill defined in mind and they develop a more defined character during the initial stages of play.

Particularly in video games, since otherwise it becomes tremendously frustrating to discover that most of the important aspects of your characters personality have no way of being expressed.

edit:  Regarding Hawke's "bipolar" nature, I think the various "tones" could easily be toned down to reduce this.  Or better, we could be given some indication of how extreme their reaction would be.

In the case of a pre-gen it does not matter. All choices are valid since they are all written for that character. Otherwise, the same way you did it in PST where the character had no memory, but you still have to make that first choice.

It's not really the actors fault. They are instructed to act a tone and this is what they do. Despite the complaints of autodialogue in ME3 it did lead to better VA because the actors had more to work with.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 09 juin 2012 - 08:13 .

[devSin]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Still wondering about the whole engine thing....

I think the issue was not so much a problem with the engine but that when they tried to fill it out with real NPCs, the consoles couldn't handle it.

This is both from limitations of the engine but also of the consoles (even ME3 has 2D sprite people running around because of resource constraints).

And we've already seen that areas can have a sufficient number of characters (think Ostagar or Orzammar in Origins), so the engine is perfectly capable of populating a large area with many fully scripted actors.

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Could there be more possible for the details in the environment f.e. if they did make 'improvements' on the engine?

Such as?

Modifié par devSin, 09 juin 2012 - 08:25 .

[AkiKishi]

devSin wrote...

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Still wondering about the whole engine thing....

I think the issue was not so much a problem with the engine but that when they tried to fill it out with real NPCs, the consoles couldn't handle it.

This is both from limitations of the engine but also of the consoles (even ME3 has 2D sprite people running around because of resource constraints).

And we've already seen that areas can have a sufficient number of characters (think Ostagar or Orzammar in Origins), so the engine is perfectly capable of populating a large area with many fully scripted actors.

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Could there be more possible for the details in the environment f.e. if they did make 'improvements' on the engine?

Such as?

Yet other console games can manage it.

Which means it's likely something to do with the graphic updates.

[devSin]

There's not a good way to compare.

This engine can do things that others can't. For instance, DA is fully scripted. Everything is open to the designer.

That comes with its own overhead, but it allows setting up unique fights and scripting spells and attacks and giving NPCs unique behaviors (although they really squandered this in both games, for whatever reason).

Would you be willing to trade that to get some more characters in the city? (I wouldn't. The scripting system has been the hallmark of BioWare's traditional CRPGs; it's a signature feature to me.) What else would you be willing to trade in order to make a map seem more active?

An engine designed first for consoles (which this one was not) can do some things well that this engine will probably never do well, sure. But this engine does things, Dragon Age things, that other engines can't do at all. Is there a better balance? I'm sure there is. But it's not a case where simply because something looks like it's possible somewhere else means that the current engine is doing something wrong. It's simply designed for different needs and with different aims in mind.

Modifié par devSin, 09 juin 2012 - 08:55 .

[devSin]

Fandango9641 wrote...

And what of Ostegar? Still to my mind the best setting in the series, there was plenty in the way of life and bustle there right?

That's the same engine.

One can only guess at what differences come from the focus on the console versions, what come from the time limitations, and what come from the changes they made to the engine (I don't believe the consoles are using the new renderer, but I don't know). I don't believe they've ever said, and nobody that I know of has looked too closely at the game data to see if they're doing things all that differently from the way they're done in Origins (I think most of the resource formats and the scripting system are the same).

And even Origins varied wildly. Ostagar seemed busy and polished to a shine (in some ways, although I was still disappointed after all David's talk of "verisimilitude" and how they were planning to make things feel alive), while Denerim and Redcliffe were ghost towns with almost no scripted behaviors in their NPCs at all.

[LolaLei]

I wonder if they'll stick with the same engine for DA3 as it stands currently, upgrade/tweak it or use a completely new engine?

Modifié par LolaLei, 09 juin 2012 - 07:33 .

[LolaLei]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Heh, new engines take a lot of time to devellop as I understand it and are extremely costly......
So I'm thinking that BW will polish their current one.

Read an article that a friend send to me that said that some engines take 6 years to devellop.
Go figure...

Isn't there a rumour that they're thinking about using the Frostbite engine? That would count as a new engine (within the DA series anyway.)

[dracuella]

LolaLei wrote...

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Heh, new engines take a lot of time to devellop as I understand it and are extremely costly......
So I'm thinking that BW will polish their current one.

Read an article that a friend send to me that said that some engines take 6 years to devellop.
Go figure...

Isn't there a rumour that they're thinking about using the Frostbite engine? That would count as a new engine (within the DA series anyway.)

It could be possible since Frostbite is owned by EA but I'm not sure how well it would fit a game like DA. I checked Wikipedia and the games that have used Frostbite have been mainly fps, one driving game and an as of yet unreleased RTS (command and conquer set for 2013) (from http://en.wikipedia....using_Frostbite).

Also Frostbite 2, the latest version of the engine, does not support DirectX 9.0 which means the game would be unplayable on Windows  XP. I don't know if that's what they're going for (I have no idea how many are still on XP) but it could potentially reduce how many buyers they reach. I for one would be forced to update. SInce there's no way I'm NOT playing DA3. EOD. 

[nightscrawl]

Well we've certainly gotten away from "Sustained outdoor exploration in Dragon Age 3" lol...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I had no idea how to use the dialogue wheel in ME or DA2. I even asked for help with that here on BSN. I still don't understand how it's even supposed to work.

Sometimes the paraphrase was precisely what I wanted to say, and then Hawke would say something that bore no resemblance at all to what I had selected.

I think the two main mistakes were (1) not having proper documentation or a (possibly optional) tutorial that took you though the dialogue wheel so people wouldn't be confused, and (2) using the paraphrases in the first place.

Two major areas suffered in DA2 from a lack of documentation: the friendship/rivalry system and the dialogue wheel; it's incredibly, painfully obvious that many of the problems stem from this, and Bioware has no one to blame but themselves for this issue, particularly since they have critically said (to forum goers who think that majority forum opinion constitutes majority player opinion) that not all of their players post on/read the forums. I agree with that completely. But if you are going to show such full awareness of your audience, then you need to take the extra step and provide for those people. Asking for a PDF manual is not unreasonable.

In some cases, like your listed example "Yes" / "Get out of my sight," falls to expectation that the paraphrases give just by existing in the first place. I think if we only had the tonal or intent icons, even if we weren't pleased with the words that came out of Hawke's mouth, the affect would have been far less jarring than the horrible contrast some of the paraphrases presented.

Since we are humans who can read, emphasis on the written word is strong, and so is our brain's reaction on reading words. Since we have this ability, it's difficult to divorce ourselves from the meaning of words, or to place no significance on them.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I think the icons madly constrained choice.  There were times in DA2 where I wanted to choose the icon from one option and the words from another.  If I chose based only on the words, I'd tend to get a voiced line that bore no resemblance to what I wanted to say.  If I chose based only on the icon, I tended to get Hawke choosing the wrong quest resolution.

DA2's dialogue system was wholly unpredictable.

Can you give an example of that second one? Generally, I thought that specific/choice options were relegated to the triple arrow gold icon, and not the various tone icons. I can't remember exactly at the moment though...

Modifié par nightscrawl, 10 juin 2012 - 03:14 .

[LolaLei]

simfamSP wrote....

The Geralt in the books would have never refused a woman, he would have slept with every single one of them.

That's alright then, because I shagged all of them LOL!

[Sidney]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Heh, new engines take a lot of time to devellop as I understand it and are extremely costly......
So I'm thinking that BW will polish their current one.

Read an article that a friend send to me that said that some engines take 6 years to devellop.
Go figure...

Problem is the DA engine is what, 6+ years old now? You look at DA* compared to other even RPG''s like TW2 or parts of Skyrim (the people look awful in Skyrim the environments look amazing) and it looks old and tired. Now, as a guy who'll still play KoTOR and BG2 I don't care all that much about grpahics but in terms of marketing the game it is hard to be a AAA title with a B class engine.

[LolaLei]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Sidney wrote...

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Heh, new engines take a lot of time to devellop as I understand it and are extremely costly......
So I'm thinking that BW will polish their current one.

Read an article that a friend send to me that said that some engines take 6 years to devellop.
Go figure...

Problem is the DA engine is what, 6+ years old now? You look at DA* compared to other even RPG''s like TW2 or parts of Skyrim (the people look awful in Skyrim the environments look amazing) and it looks old and tired. Now, as a guy who'll still play KoTOR and BG2 I don't care all that much about grpahics but in terms of marketing the game it is hard to be a AAA title with a B class engine.

I for one am two minded about the graphics. Sure, I love the environments/graphics in the Witcher (absolutely breathtaking). I although still enjoy older games that have crappy graphics and really do not mind that.

The problem I have with the graphics in DA is I compare them to games like the Witcher and Skyrim. Although different set up but the environments have a big place in the story.

In terms of graphics I would like them to improve in the next installment because I got spoiled I guess...
Exploration is a thing I really look for in a game and 'environmental eye candy' is very much appriciated by me while doing it...

Me too. I mean, I don't really mind what the game looks like so long as the story and characters/companions are good but the environmental eye candy would be a bonus, I don't mind if the characters look the same as they did in DA2, they weren't so bad (even if they did hit Alistair and Zevran with the ugly stick lol.)

[AkiKishi]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Sidney wrote...

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Heh, new engines take a lot of time to devellop as I understand it and are extremely costly......
So I'm thinking that BW will polish their current one.

Read an article that a friend send to me that said that some engines take 6 years to devellop.
Go figure...

Problem is the DA engine is what, 6+ years old now? You look at DA* compared to other even RPG''s like TW2 or parts of Skyrim (the people look awful in Skyrim the environments look amazing) and it looks old and tired. Now, as a guy who'll still play KoTOR and BG2 I don't care all that much about grpahics but in terms of marketing the game it is hard to be a AAA title with a B class engine.

I for one am two minded about the graphics. Sure, I love the environments/graphics in the Witcher (absolutely breathtaking). I although still enjoy older games that have crappy graphics and really do not mind that.

The problem I have with the graphics in DA is I compare them to games like the Witcher and Skyrim. Although different set up but the environments have a big place in the story.

In terms of graphics I would like them to improve in the next installment because I got spoiled I guess...
Exploration is a thing I really look for in a game and 'environmental eye candy' is very much appriciated by me while doing it...

The important thing is to be consistant. It's not good making some parts of the game look good and others look awful because that is what people notice.

Witcher2 handled large enviroments without too many problems, as well as having a lot of things on screen at the same time.