202 réponses à ce sujet

[nightscrawl]

Wow, there is some great stuff in this thread.

-- some SPOILERS for DA2 ending --

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Do you think it'd be more important to make sure that we (1) acknowledge player choice in future games (possibly leading to the restrictions like you indicate), or do you think it'd be better to (2) allow for more in game choice and different outcomes, but allow ourselves to establish "this is canon because it's the story we've been building up to" for some/most/all [important] choices?

(Numbers mine.) At this point, I really think Bioware needs to pick a side and stick with it. You all tried to fix some of the carry over with the basic ending of DA2. And while I appreciate that, it's only a half measure. We still have our import choices from DAO with important things like the ruler of Ferelden, the Dark Ritual, the ruler of Orzammar; all of which can have important political and real ramifications in the universe we're building. Even if we never play as the Warden again, these choices are important.

Bioware really is in a Catch-22 now.

If you go with option 1 and the decisions become too significant -- for an extreme example, let's say for DA3 you pick a side at the beginning and end up killing either half the mages or half of the templars/seekers throughout the game, and it's known that you do this -- every game you make from that point on becomes more and more divergent as you have to develop (somewhat) separate arcs based on the huge decision the player made in DA3.

I'll add though that you really dodged a bullet with the ending of DA2. Yes, you had to make a significant choice, but the final result of that choice, mage/templar war, happens regardless, so your choice didn't really matter other than for your own Hawke's story. Even the boss fights were exactly the same (which I only partly agree with).

If you go with option 2 players will get upset that their choices had no significance, and any sense of world building, or Thedas development at the hands of the player will be lost from game to game.

IMO in order to avoid the snowball effect the only choice is a 3rd option, which is to have each game be self-contained. By all means keep them in the same Dragon Age universe, with the same general lore, but have no decisions carry over. The only acceptable ones would be the basic conclusion of any given game: the Blight was stopped because the Archdemon was defeated, Anders blew up the Chantry in Kirkwall (the only thing mentioned about DA2 in Asunder), and so forth. And that's all.

That way, players can keep the agency in their individual game, closed around a specific character's actions, without worry about influencing other games. Using this method, you could conceivably have 20 different games set in Thedas. Players familiar with the series would already understand the Chantry, the darkspawn threat, the mage/templar conflict, Qunari dangers, elf oppression, and have their experience enriched by that knowledge, without having the need to import decisions that don't have to matter for a fresh story.

Realmzmaster wrote...

I am for more in game choices.

...

Choices that carry over are usually more trouble and problematic than they are worth. Those kind of choices raise expectations which if not met cause disappointment.

Great stuff. I agree with your points about Leliana and other such choices. If Bioware is going to have characters or choices be significant in the future, then they should consider that while developing a current game. They should attempt to disguise it in such a way as to feel natural while playing, but not a retcon when we encounter it in the next game. This Leliana suggestion is a perfect example. If would have felt natural for her to just stun me at 50% health and flee, or for another follower to stop me from the deathblow. And certainly would have made seeing her again in DA2 much more tolerable than having seen myself kill her in the previous game, only to have her appear for no reason. (I never killed her btw, but I can sympathize with the irritation.)

brushyourteeth wrote...

I think it's kind of already too late not to establish some kind of canon. So many of our choices have been, up to this point, pretty pivotal that you're only going to be able to get so far without either establishing a canon or ignoring important parts of the political geography of Thedas (who is the Ferelden monarch? for instance. Also there could be one or more Old Gods running around?!) Add to that that a lot of us who have been paying attention kind of know what some of the writers' favorite conclusions are and we're kind of halfway to canon already.

Yep, agree 100%.

BobSmith101 wrote...

You have 2 choices.

1. Allow lot's of choices within a game, but don't carry them over. Witcher 2 did that , no one seemed overly bothered by it and the sales were still good.

2. Allow hardly any choice in the game, thus allowing those minor choices to be carried into the next game. Writing DA2 to be able to let you choose Mages, Templars or none of the above never happens because the game needs you to be at a fixed point for the next one (although the poor performance of DA2 probably changed those plans anyway).

Personally I'm more concerned about the game I'm playing rather than the game that comes next so I pick option 1.

Hooray, we agree on something! *hug*

Modifié par nightscrawl, 10 juin 2012 - 01:57 .

[nightscrawl]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Regarding PC's neutrality, I think the game should acknowlege that not all players would like to take a stand in conflict. Some people would rather  walk away than trying to be a mediator if the conflicting sides are uncompromised  and become hostile towards each other. In Skyrim I did side with both sides in several playthroughs just to know the different outcomes.  But beyond that I'd most likely to stay away from Skyrim's civil war  So I hope the world and NPCs could respect my character just as much as I respect their opinion or whatever they believe in.

If PC is forced to side or involved in some capacity, then I hope the plot would provide solid reason for doing so like the blight in DAO. PC doesn't have to be associated with any organization as long as the reason is clearly unavoidable and justified.

To be fair, they did suggest very early on that we were going to have to pick a side eventually. It's not like we weren't warned. I also don't think Meredith would have let Hawke walk away from that scene. If Hawke had just turned around and walked away, I think she would have seen it as tacit approval for the mages anyway. "If you're not with me, you're against me" as it were. She was crazy by that point, remember?

That said, I like to play a neutral character as well. I usually try to play my Hawkes as making a decision on a case-by-case basis, rather than as just siding for/against mages simply because they are mages. Unfortunately, the dialogue and friendship/rivalry system doesn't account for that.

Alessa-00 wrote...

If my choices are mostly without any influence on the future games, because you say "this is canon because it's the story we've been building up to" ... why should I make a decision anyway? Then I just can run through the game, never bothering myself with the possible outcome of any decision ... and just wait to see what you decide to be canon for the next game.

Well why have plot decisions or dialogue options at all then? We can just play it like a Zelda game. The whole structure of the game is built around having these choices. If they had never made another Dragon Age game after DAO, and they never planned to make another game ever, would you consider all of those choices you made while playing DAO as worthless because they wouldn't have any impact on a future game?

[Gibb_Shepard]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Which is yet another reason I don;'t like that they've taken this story up so early. It's pretty much inevitable we'll be railroaded into one outcome since different conclusions would simply be too diverse and complicated to successfully carry over into future media. If they were going to do this story, they should have concluded the series with it and tied it in with the Flemeth/Morrigan arc so they wouldn't have to worry about imports or cohesiveness in regard to player choice etc.

Do you think it'd be more important to make sure that we acknowledge player choice in future games (possibly leading to the restrictions like you indicate), or do you think it'd be better to allow for more in game choice and different outcomes, but allow ourselves to establish "this is canon because it's the story we've been building up to" for some/most/all [important] choices?

Choices and consequences in game! I could care less about an established canon. The day the import mechanic begins to hinder the choice variaety we get in Dragon Age will be a sad, sad day.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

nightscrawl wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Regarding PC's neutrality, I think the game should acknowlege that not all players would like to take a stand in conflict. Some people would rather  walk away than trying to be a mediator if the conflicting sides are uncompromised  and become hostile towards each other. In Skyrim I did side with both sides in several playthroughs just to know the different outcomes.  But beyond that I'd most likely to stay away from Skyrim's civil war  So I hope the world and NPCs could respect my character just as much as I respect their opinion or whatever they believe in.

If PC is forced to side or involved in some capacity, then I hope the plot would provide solid reason for doing so like the blight in DAO. PC doesn't have to be associated with any organization as long as the reason is clearly unavoidable and justified.

To be fair, they did suggest very early on that we were going to have to pick a side eventually. It's not like we weren't warned.

When did they warned us? Early ACT III? Or during the development circle? As far as I concern, Cassandra only mention, "The world is at brink of war." which I interpret as Hawke cannot stop the war.

nightscrawl wrote...
I also don't think Meredith would have let Hawke walk away from that scene. If Hawke had just turned around and walked away, I think she would have seen it as tacit approval for the mages anyway. "If you're not with me, you're against me" as it were. She was crazy by that point, remember?

That the reason why I dislike staying in Kirkwall. If I had a choice, I would have left Kirkwall after ACT I. It's really not hard to figure out what's going to happen. All the signs were already hinted in DAO and Cassandra's dialogue. There was nothing could be done and it's irrational to get involved.

nightscrawl wrote...
That said, I like to play a neutral character as well. I usually try to play my Hawkes as making a decision on a case-by-case basis, rather than as just siding for/against mages simply because they are mages. Unfortunately, the dialogue and friendship/rivalry system doesn't account for that.

That's what always bother me with BioWare's games after DAO.  A lot of things are executed in a way that don't appeal me, from narrative to player agency to player character to companion's interaction. It's all too restricted and yet offer very little value in term of roleplaying. You can't  be neutral because of reason X. You can't be bitter character because of reason Y. You can't interact freely with your companions because of reason Z. You can't activate companions personal quest because reason XYZ. You can't choose the ending because of reason ABC.
Nothing can be played according to what I want. Everything has to be railroaded and defined to be generic two goody shoes character with maximum points of this and that. I don't find it interesting and fun at all. 

I always play neutral lawful warrior or neutral chaotic rogue/archer. I dislike being forced to play extreme end paragon/renegade or maximun diplomatic/humorous/aggresive character.  If I still can't create my character and get penalized for playing neutral lawful or neutral chaotic character in future DA series, then I may as well find other developer who can provide me with such a simple request that even the great BioWare can't provide.

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 10 juin 2012 - 06:14 .

[LolaLei]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Do you think it'd be more important to make sure that we (1) acknowledge player choice in future games (possibly leading to the restrictions like you indicate), or do you think it'd be better to (2) allow for more in game choice and different outcomes, but allow ourselves to establish "this is canon because it's the story we've been building up to" for some/most/all [important] choices?

It's definitely a tough one. I can only think of two possibilities:

1) Avoid killing off anymore of the past or present companions just incase you want to use them again in future DA games as cameos or whatever (Leliana being a prime example of this,) and maybe only import over the obvious/important decisions made in the previous game(s) like, for example, who the ruling monarch is, who your previous protagonists love interests were (if there's a cameo planned for them) etc.

OR

2) Have all future DA games self contained (as others have suggested) in which, aside from the passing mention of our Warden/Hawke "oh, I met them once" kinda thing, nothing else about the previous game(s) should be brought up unless it's regarding an event that the player had no control/choice over (for example, the Meredith/Orsino battle.) I would also avoid any cameos from past companions that were potential love interests because the romance flags tend to glitch or people get angry because they don't look or behave how they expected (I'm looking at you Alistair and Zevran! ) Instead, only have cameo appearances from non-romanceable companions that can't die and who's fate couldn't be changed in the previous game(s) (like Varric and Aveline.) The same goes for NPC's from past games, they should only turn up if a) they couldn't be killed and had no options placed on them that could change their fate in the previous game(s), this also counts when turning past NPC's into companions/love interests, for example, having Feynriel as a companion wouldn't be a wise choice because there were too many variables to his personal story, however, someone like Cullen (hint hint) would be fine because he couldn't be killed and his fate wasn't  altered in DA2 (we shall ignore the fact that his story has already been retconned from DA:O 'n' that he might be too old/busy to be a companion/love interest for the moment, for the sake of my example LOL.)

Modifié par LolaLei, 10 juin 2012 - 06:57 .

[Annihilator27]

Neutral will be an interesting thing to see, But I want to erase the Templars from existence.

[Iakus]

Ryzaki wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

It homogonises *all* player experiences into one developer-chosen truth

This I do disagree with.

Canon Revan is lightside. I do not in any way feel this takes away from my experience of playing through KOTOR as a good guy soldier that slowly falls to the darkside in a "road to hell is paved with good intentions" sort of way. It's still easily one of my most enjoyable CRPG roleplaying experiences and literally changed the way I approach playing CRPGs.

A player's experience is a player's experience. Nothing anyone says or does can take away from that. It's fine to be disappointed if choices aren't reflected in sequels, but anyone that lets that take away from the experience they had playing the prequel is letting the disappointment spill over too far, in my opinion.  I do feel it's in the player's control to restrict the disappointment to the sequel itself.

I liken it to those that were so outspoken against Fallout 3 because they felt that it was an abomination and would some how take away from Fallout 1 and 2.  But it doesn't.


I have a more general response mulling in my brain to the topic at hand (which I am thoroughly enjoying reading as an FYI), but I'm eating lunch right now. Nom nom nom.

Agreed.

In all honesty I think the DAO import feature was a mistake. I don't mind an overarching plot as long as in each game I get alot of choices and consequences even if they're not "canon" at least I can highly enjoy playing the game while I'm playing with it.

CLSM Revan doesn't stop my enjoyment of my DSFRevan.

Also agreed.

At some point, a canon will have to be established, or Thedas will end up like Mass Effect, buckling under the weight of all those variables to the point where most of them won't matter anyway.

I'd just ditch the import feature and just either establish a set canon or let us select relevant choices at the start (the three premade Wardens in DA2 would be a basic example of this)

It's far more enjoyable to have choices and consequences within a game, even if it's a "noncanon" game than to basically be herded down a path to keep variables manageable.

As a bonus, it eliminates import bugs (Dangit, DA2, I don't care what you think,  Nate's alive in this import!  I should know, I took him with me to face the Mother!)

[Realmzmaster]

arcelonious wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

arcelonious wrote...

Most games already utilize the "canon" approach, so I would much rather that Bioware stick with the import system and continue to refine it. I personally enjoyed hearing how I have affected the game's world in previous games (Dragon Age and Mass Effect), as it gives me the impression that I'm experiencing a personal, overarching story and evolving world.

On topic, I don't know if I would have liked a neutral option for the end of DA2, simply because it would have been the most appealing option for most players, and thus, it would dramatically decrease the difficulty of the choice. It's like the Connor dilemma in DA:O, which ultimately isn't much of a dilemma, when you could simply obtain the best result by simply enlisting the mages for help. In the end, I would rather prefer a choice between two difficult outcomes, rather than have more choices, but with a choice that is easily more preferable than the others.

The Connor's choice was not clear cut. If the party went to the tower first and the mages were anulled it was not even an option. It was dependent on how you did the treaties. The party could accidently annul the circle or if the party failed to pick up the litany would have to annull the circle. Only if you went to Reddcliffe first would you know about Conor's situation. So it depended on the actions and order (which is a choice) that the gamer did.

While the choice to seek the Circle's aid for Connor is not available in all playthroughs, it is still largely the most desirable outcome when it is available, which was my point (i.e., I don't like choices where one is easily more desirable than the others, regardless of whether there are special conditions that make it accessible).

I understand others would prefer games where they're able to save as many people as possible with the right decisions, but unfortunately I do not share that desire.  I would much rather play a game where you're forced to choose between a set of outcomes that carry both positive and negative consequences, with no choice (including special, conditional outcomes) being easily more desirable than the others.  For example, in the Walking Dead adventure game, you're sometimes forced to choose between saving one person or another, and depending on your subjective view of each character, the choice can be difficult.

So you are saying you would limit the choices available to the party. The problem is you are metagaming the situation because of knowledge you have. The PC does not have that knowledge. If my character picks going to the Circle the character has no way of knowing if Redcliffe will still be there when the party gets back and that Connor has not been fully possessed so there is no Connor to save. I say do not limit the choices.

[Hurbster]

The lack of a neutral option towards the endgame was really detrimental to the game and made you feel as if you were just railroaded into a decision. The ending to siding with the mages being identical to siding with the Templars was not good either. In fact my Hawke just wanted to wash his hands of the whole damn lot of them and leave that terrible town.

[mopotter]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Which is yet another reason I don;'t like that they've taken this story up so early. It's pretty much inevitable we'll be railroaded into one outcome since different conclusions would simply be too diverse and complicated to successfully carry over into future media. If they were going to do this story, they should have concluded the series with it and tied it in with the Flemeth/Morrigan arc so they wouldn't have to worry about imports or cohesiveness in regard to player choice etc.

Do you think it'd be more important to make sure that we acknowledge player choice in future games (possibly leading to the restrictions like you indicate), or do you think it'd be better to allow for more in game choice and different outcomes, but allow ourselves to establish "this is canon because it's the story we've been building up to" for some/most/all [important] choices?

I'm no longer a fan of importing too much from previous games.  Just the basics would be fine with me and maybe a character who didn't have much screen time in the others.    I'd rather have each game stand alone and have coices, including neutral ones, matter for the ending.

Let me walk by some people talking about the fight at Kirkwell and how the mages and templars came together at the end to take down the insane Meradeth after the insane blood mage Orisano was killed,  or how the Warden saved the day and helped end the blight.

I enjoyed both DA:O and DA:2, I'm still playing both of them, and I've enjoyed all the books, especially the most recent Asunder which is my favorite of them all.  If the next game has anythingn to do with this, I'll more than likely enjoy it.  Yes fun stuff, mage, templer or divine with some mages supporting templars, some templars supporting mages and the divine trying to get some kind of middle ground.

My bigest complaint about DA:2 was that both leaders were nuts.  Maybe it was not possible to do this any other way, but it would have been nice for the leader of the party I supported to be the sane one.  At least Cullen seems to have gotten help and was a great way to bring someone from DA:O into the new game.  

[King Cousland]

 How about this guys: As others have said, I would prefer to see consequences (massive ones potentially) of choices in-game, and would gladly sacrifice an import feature if it meant preventing a canon being established (but I still maintain BioWare should have thought ahead before starting a Thedas wide conflict <_<). However, if we were to have expansions for future games, maybe we could have an import feature exclusively for them to see the longer term impact of our choices. 

[Wulfram]

If they do keep importing, I'd rather cut down on unnecessary minor side quests and cameos that are dependent on imports, and instead focus the resources on the consequences of one or two big decisions.

Modifié par Wulfram, 10 juin 2012 - 11:23 .

[Iakus]

Hurbster wrote...

The lack of a neutral option towards the endgame was really detrimental to the game and made you feel as if you were just railroaded into a decision. The ending to siding with the mages being identical to siding with the Templars was not good either. In fact my Hawke just wanted to wash his hands of the whole damn lot of them and leave that terrible town.

Same.

I wanted to bunker down in the Amell estate with my companions and let the mages and templars kill each other.

[Dave of Canada]

The worst part for me is seeing the advantages of both sides but letting my player-bias influence my thoughts, I'd love to see tighter narrative with more deviation from that but part of me would absolutely hate seeing mages partying in the streets because they were freed, despite my protagonists trying to stop them every step of the way.

It's odd, however, that I was fine with the KOTOR Dark Side ending being considered non-canon. Hell, scenes like this were awesome. I'd wager the differences being partially because Revan's journey is far less "personal" than say, the Warden or Hawke.

I mean, Revan wins on both endings and the journey there was ultimately about dark side or light side and it's influence on the galaxy. Warden or Hawke (less-so for him/her, however) had far more involved choices, some involving betraying their friends and others involving subjucating certain groups or something.

I mean, forcing my "controversial" playthroughs into non-existence for, say... a human noble who did the dark ritual, put alistair on the throne and whatever else would be the "generic" canon would be slightly insulting, as the Thedas--the supposed key character of the dragon age franchise--would ultimately become unmalleable and foreign to me.

Seeing Anders and the Warden talk about how fun it is to be alive while holding the god baby (who's mentioning how existance is great) as the mages proclaim freedom over Loghain's corpse would probably cause a few veins to pop out of my forehead.

[Ryzaki]

iakus wrote...

Hurbster wrote...

The lack of a neutral option towards the endgame was really detrimental to the game and made you feel as if you were just railroaded into a decision. The ending to siding with the mages being identical to siding with the Templars was not good either. In fact my Hawke just wanted to wash his hands of the whole damn lot of them and leave that terrible town.

Same.

I wanted to bunker down in the Amell estate with my companions and let the mages and templars kill each other.

That but before that give Meredith and Orsino a The Reason You Suck Speech before leaving.

[nightscrawl]

Hurbster wrote...

The lack of a neutral option towards the endgame was really detrimental to the game and made you feel as if you were just railroaded into a decision. The ending to siding with the mages being identical to siding with the Templars was not good either. In fact my Hawke just wanted to wash his hands of the whole damn lot of them and leave that terrible town.

I think they're trying to frame it in such a way as to have it be impossible to be neutral. Sure, you may really have no opinion one way or another about mages or templars, but if the conflict is going to be as huge as it seems, everyone is going to be affected in some way or other.

I have to add though, you only think that because you're not a mage. Or even if you played a mage Hawke or Warden, it's presented in those games as if your character is above the law. Because it affects their very life and freedom, it is absolutely impossible for a mage to NOT have an opinion about this, even if it's just a tranquil saying "I prefer things to stay as they are."

Think of it like the American Civil War. It's the deadliest war in American history, and everyone at the time was affected in some way. If you didn't have a male relative who fought or a female who was a nurse, you had other hardships like rations on certain foodstuffs and clothing items (thread, buttons, needles). Businesses were affected because of rationing and disruption of trade routes, leading to business owners, their families, their employees and their families also suffering financially, even if they didn't fight themselves. There are many far reaching aspects of wars than just casualties among the combatants. Both sides were affected in this way, though admittedly the South to a much greater degree due to Union blockading.

If you are the Bann of some small region, your freeholders will look to you for leadership. There will be Chantrys and their associated templars, some of which might break away to go rogue and hunt mages; your people might expect you to support the Chantry because they are Maker-fearing Andrastians. If you are a simple farmer, you are at the whim of your Bann or Arl, who might be an over zealous Andrastian himself and want to lend the Chantry aid; or perhaps he is a mage-sympathizer, having had a sibling, child, or other relative taken away by the templars, and so attempts to drive the Chantry off his land.

Really, I could go on and on listing hypothetical scenarios where someone's life would be affected in some way other other, even if they have no stake in, or no opinion of, the overall conflict.

People don't notice things, don't try to fix problems, or don't try to right wrongs because they feel that it has nothing to do with them. "Why should I care about the Patriot Act, I have nothing to hide," and other such things. Problems of this gargantuan magnitude touch everyone's lives, whether they care about them or not.

All of that aside, I don't think that Biowae did a good job of presenting that in the game. Perhaps in the next game, where, supposedly, the conflict plays a larger part (rather than the lead up of DA2) we might see some points made on this issue.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 11 juin 2012 - 01:52 .

[LolaLei]

I got the impression that the reason you had to pick a side in DA2 was because it'll be an important factor in DA3, not that it really matters which side you took since you end up killing both Meredith and Orsino anyway.

The thing is, if Hawke had said "screw you guys, I'm going home" then there wouldn't have been a story set up for the next game because Meredith probably wouldn't have died and Orsino would've more than likely been killed on the spot before he even had the chance to turn himself into an abomination.

... It's all Hawke's bloody fault LOL!

Modifié par LolaLei, 11 juin 2012 - 07:07 .

[Furtled]

Personally I don't have a problem with content being locked out if it's due to decisions I made as a player, Witcher 2 did it and it only added to the re-playability of the game despite the fixed protagonist angle. Hell even DA2 did it to some extent with smaller quests, it's hard to articulate the sense of glee when something pops up you didn't get last time, but the squee-age is strong when it happens.

As an example: My warden didn't crown Alistair and I was incredibly happy to see that reflected in DA2 even briefly because it made me as a player feel like I'd achieved something and helped tie me into the game on more of an emotional level. If he'd shown up as king I'd have felt really quite angry, which is entirely irrational I know, but when you create characters so well people do get emotionally attached to them and (by extension) the world they inhabit.

Nothing wrong with throwing a bit of canon out there, but keeping it to the big plot type stuff like 'the mages revolted' or 'the Archdemon died' would be a better move than resurrecting characters that can die or retconning a player decision, no matter how cool the idea is (just look at the reaction to the Rachni situation on the ME boards); I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to make something like the OGB canon, but it'd have to be a hell of a good explanation to pull it off without cheapening the decision for anyone who turned down the ritual.

I do wonder if varied origins would help with all this, if you set up a story for players to pick a side (say mage, templar or neutral) at the beginning, then they can decide which content they're locked out of, it's far less frustrating to miss out/have things happen because you decided as a player instead of having the devs decide for you and railroad you into something, like say the quest to help Patrice at the end of Act1 in DA2.

TL;DR: Nothing wrong with a canon ending as long as I feel in control of the journey to get there.

Modifié par Furtled, 11 juin 2012 - 07:00 .

[Fast Jimmy]

 

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Choices and consequences in game! I could care less about an established canon. The day the import mechanic begins to hinder the choice variaety we get in Dragon Age will be a sad, sad day.

 

That day has passed. It was when DA2 was being developed and only had two ending options, none of which mattered.

nightscrawl wrote...

Well why have plot decisions or dialogue options at all then? We can just play it like a Zelda game. The whole structure of the game is built around having these choices. If they had never made another Dragon Age game after DAO, and they never planned to make another game ever, would you consider all of those choices you made while playing DAO as worthless because they wouldn't have any impact on a future game?

Well said. Import flags do not a great game make. I have every option under the sun in Skyrim to kill almost anyone I please... it doesn't mean I cared even in the slightest when an NPC died. Meanwhile, I took (what I thought) was a risk in DA:O to save Isolde and Connor, two NPCs that my character barely knew but were still more real than any Skyrim NPC, dealing with a Desrie Demon head on. That's good story writing.

Does the story change how I feel if I found out that the canon established by a future game was that they both died? No, absolutely not. 

Is it extremely unlikely this choice will ever have an impact in future stories very high if the writers/devs have to juggle multiple import flags, voices, scripts and quest designs? You betcha. 

Will letting the writers set a canon that Connor died after Isolde sacrificed herself for a Blood Magic rite and then have him be a possible companion, who can have interesting story developed with his past with a demon, be a lot cooler than acting like the decision never happened at all? I'd say Hades forking yeah!

nightscrawl wrote...

IMO in order to avoid the snowball effect the only choice is a 3rd option, which is to have each game be self-contained. By all means keep them in the same Dragon Age universe, with the same general lore, but have no decisions carry over. The only acceptable ones would be the basic conclusion of any given game: the Blight was stopped because the Archdemon was defeated, Anders blew up the Chantry in Kirkwall (the only thing mentioned about DA2 in Asunder), and so forth. And that's all.

 

How is this third option, of making every game insular, better than establishing a canon? Or, for that matter, how is it even different? 

If each game has no changes to import, that means that everything winds up ending the same, all choices lead to the same place, that the net effect of all choices is zero. Granted, there might be a slightly different journey, different conversaitons, maybe a different boss battle, sure. But if each game is totally insular, then you'd get no real choice.

For instance, if DA:O was insular, you'd save the mages, never agree to have the Tower Annulled.

Bhelen would be king, as even if you picked Harrowmont, there would be some hand waving where he'd revolt and take over the throne.

The Dalish would never be killed by the werewolves, you'd maybe have a choice whether Zathrien sacrifices himself, or you have to fight and kill him to end the curse.

You'd always save the Urn, kill the Dragon Cult. You'd have the option of fighting the High Dragon, I guess. 

Allistair would be king, Anora would be locked up, Loghain would be executed and even if you refused the Dark Ritual, Allistair would simply perform it secretly so that he could prevent you from dying.

Does this sound like a fun game? Or a game that offers choice? To me, it doesn't. It sounds like McGuffin City, ruled by the Bioware Railroad Company. 

So why not let them set a canon every game of what happened, and in each game give us a dozens of real, interesting, impactful choices? ANd endings that can be good, bad, strange or unique? And then wipe the slate clean?

Reqeusting that Bioware import choices, but then in the same breath ask that they keep all choices in-game insular is begging to have a railroaded story, where no choice is even remotely possible. That's what DA2 was and people called it stale and boring.

[Fast Jimmy]

Furtled wrote...

Nothing wrong with throwing a bit of canon out there, but keeping it to the big plot type stuff like 'the mages revolted' or 'the Archdemon died' would be a better move than resurrecting characters that can die or retconning a player decision, no matter how cool the idea is (just look at the reaction to the Rachni situation on the ME boards); I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to make something like the OGB canon, but it'd have to be a hell of a good explanation to pull it off without cheapening the decision for anyone who turned down the ritual.

TL;DR: Nothing wrong with a canon ending as long as I feel in control of the journey to get there.

Furtled, I have nothing against you, but I see people misusing the term "make canon" and its becoming a pet peeve of mine. SO this is more for the boards in general than you personally.

Making something canon is not the same as railroading a choice.

Saying "I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to make something like the OGB canon, but it'd have to be a hell of a good explanation to pull it off without cheapening the decision for anyone who turned down the ritual." is not an accurate statement. If they made the Dark Ritual canon, it means the Hero of Ferelden, the Grey Warden, performed the Dark Ritual. No ifs and's or but's. Maybe YOUR Warden didn't... but that's irrelevant to the future games, as the canon was that it happened.

Now... if Bioware tried to RAILROAD your decision of not doing the Dark Ritual, that would be both hard to do and a little silly. If they said "Oh, well, your Warden didn't do the DR, but turns out that Morrigan had a trick up her sleeve and got the OGB anyway! HaHA!", then that would cheapen things.

With canon, Bioware is going back and saying "This is what happened in previous games." No explanations, no elaborate mechanisms of how all the choices wound up in the same place... they say "The Warden was a City Elf female who romanced Allistair and convinced him to sleep with Morrigan to preserve their lives." There is no explanation of what, say, your male Human Noble's actions were - outside of DA:O, your male Human Noble does not exist.

That's the point of establishing canon - you don't have to worry about all the other choices. You pick the ones that you feel would best help tell future stories and stay true to the world you've created and you build from there. 

I am a proponent of eastblishing canon between games. If it means they could give us back all the choice in the world and them not have to take future games into consideration when thinking of stories and quests now, then I'm all for it. Keeping people's hands tied just so we can have a poorly constructed illusion of choice is boring and unsustainable.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 11 juin 2012 - 07:41 .

[LinksOcarina]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Which is yet another reason I don;'t like that they've taken this story up so early. It's pretty much inevitable we'll be railroaded into one outcome since different conclusions would simply be too diverse and complicated to successfully carry over into future media. If they were going to do this story, they should have concluded the series with it and tied it in with the Flemeth/Morrigan arc so they wouldn't have to worry about imports or cohesiveness in regard to player choice etc.

Do you think it'd be more important to make sure that we acknowledge player choice in future games (possibly leading to the restrictions like you indicate), or do you think it'd be better to allow for more in game choice and different outcomes, but allow ourselves to establish "this is canon because it's the story we've been building up to" for some/most/all [important] choices?

 Here is the issue from what I see. 

The problem is the Warden, and to an extant, Hawke, are characters that don't fit in the setup for the Dragon Age games, because both are characters we control and shape their personality while following a pre-determined storyline.

Hawkes story is obvious, since the framed narrative warrants that something had to happen and we needed to follow it to a conclusion. The Warden's story is also the same thing though; the conclusion was always going to be a final confrontation and a choice with Morrigan, and the Landsmeet. Those three choices were the major ones while the rest affected the future of the world in large and small ways, and the immediacy of that game. My point though, is that even though there are variables as to how the story can end, who lives, who dies, and so forth, the story still wraps up at the same conclusion point on a linear storyline.

BioWare did this with Mass Effect, and it works there because it is a predetermined story with an arc. Here though we got a storyline that is always changing with a linear path, but a change of the world and outcome of that said linear path.

So the question is moreso not about the type of game we see based on a degree of choices, but the type of game we see that adheres to this design. If we get more options for choices, we tip balance to favor a game like Skyrim over anything else, which in my opinion, is not a model to live up to when telling a narrative.

The caveat is that to tell the narrative BioWare is making, certain degrees of choice need to be sacrified. So the real question should be on fans to ask themselves what choices can be sacrificed, vs should we add more choices vs using a pre-determined storyline.

In other words, you need a player character that is both the players, and BioWares for this to work. The real trick is making the world, and the character, unique enough to go through a linear storyline and make the outcome unique to the players experience. 

[Furtled]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Furtled, I have nothing against you, but I see people misusing the term "make canon" and its becoming a pet peeve of mine. SO this is more for the boards in general than you personally.

Making something canon is not the same as railroading a choice.

Ahh no, that's me not being clear enough, no offence taken at all.

Like you say, railroading applied to forcing the player to take a specific action (say helping Patrice or no rest of game for you) that can go against the character established by the player, and by canon I meant more fixed events. What I call the journey did refer to letting the player set the story within a more solid framework provided by the devs.

As an example: Everyone who played DA:O has a warden who was at Ostagar, went to Lothering, Redcliffe, Orzammar, the Forest and Denerim etc. all of them ensured the dwarves got a new king, all of them ended the demon invasion of the tower and all of them stopped the blight (broad plot points I'd personally describe as canon events). It's who/what they are, what they did there and how they did the things they did (and with who) that's the journey in my mind.

Acceptable canon (for me personally) is not every single aspect of a back story, it's highlights at most, allowing for a certain series of events that did happen, but not the order they happened or the specifics of how they happened and who was involved; it'd be easy enough to do variant codex entries for the details that'd reflect player choice, similar to say the codex on the Hero of Ferelden in DA2. Does that make any more sense?

I do get that putting a retcon of some of the smaller scale decisions off limits does tie the writers hands and make their jobs trickier; Anders is a good example, I still don't understand how he would have survived and met Justice if he's not recruited in Awakenings, and I do wish more of an effort had been made to explain that in-game for players who made that choice, same goes for Leliana's 'recovery' for players who'd killed her. There's so much emphasis on (the illusion of) choice and consequence in the games that these sort of things should be taken into account, but there is the problem of tight deadlines to consider where DA2 is concerned. Hopefully the team will take their time with DA3 and anything like that would be dealt with properly.

On OGB again I do agree with you, I'm no where near bright enough to come up with something that would allow for the OGB without it being a bit of an up yours to players who didn't do the ritual, but I do get why it would be so tempting for the devs to want to because it opens up so many possibilities story wise. Like I said though it'd have to be one hell of a good explanation that took that non-ritual player's decision into account.

Modifié par Furtled, 11 juin 2012 - 08:03 .

[PsychoBlonde]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

A player's experience is a player's experience. Nothing anyone says or does can take away from that. It's fine to be disappointed if choices aren't reflected in sequels, but anyone that lets that take away from the experience they had playing the prequel is letting the disappointment spill over too far, in my opinion.  I do feel it's in the player's control to restrict the disappointment to the sequel itself.

Personally, the only thing that really annoys me is the lack of forward thinking involved in these summary declarations by the devs.  This is one area where DA2 shows vastly better planning--nothing that happens or can happen in DA2 is canon-shaking.  Nor was there a lengthy epilogue that detailed events a later game contradicts.

Since you guys already made a few canon-establishing decisions like, oh, that Leliana was alive and Wynne was alive and Anders was alive and went to Kirkwall, you may as well continue to establish canon for Origins--that cat is out of the bag.

And, in the future, think REALLY HARD before you decide to let the PC kill off major characters.  Doing this, and then bringing them back is probably THE most annoying practice in this respect.  You could even do some advance thinking about major events (like the OGB) and come up with a plausible way that it could work out despite what the player chooses in advance, rather than trying to tack one on when you realize some years down the road that this was a Really Interesting Event that could use further exploration.

[Wulfram]

PsychoBlonde wrote...
 This is one area where DA2 shows vastly better planning--nothing that happens or can happen in DA2 is canon-shaking.

And this is exactly why I've turned against the import feature.  If they'd put the same "forward thinking" into DA:O, I don't think it would have been the great game that it was.

Modifié par Wulfram, 11 juin 2012 - 09:18 .

[The Elder King]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

A player's experience is a player's experience. Nothing anyone says or does can take away from that. It's fine to be disappointed if choices aren't reflected in sequels, but anyone that lets that take away from the experience they had playing the prequel is letting the disappointment spill over too far, in my opinion.  I do feel it's in the player's control to restrict the disappointment to the sequel itself.

Personally, the only thing that really annoys me is the lack of forward thinking involved in these summary declarations by the devs.  This is one area where DA2 shows vastly better planning--nothing that happens or can happen in DA2 is canon-shaking.  Nor was there a lengthy epilogue that detailed events a later game contradicts.

Since you guys already made a few canon-establishing decisions like, oh, that Leliana was alive and Wynne was alive and Anders was alive and went to Kirkwall, you may as well continue to establish canon for Origins--that cat is out of the bag.

Agreed. People will be pissed if Bioware establish a canon for Origins, sure, but they'd still be pissed if when they play with their import characters that should be stay will be magically alive, or when their decision are screwed because the import sucks.
Plus, if they'll choose to focus on Flemeth and Morrigan in the future, they'll have to make a decision about the OGB. And I think it'd be better with a canon Origins import than with a personal import with a female Warden that died when she killed the archdemon (they could make that Morrigan convinced Loghain/Alistair regardless, but I doubt people will like that).