27744 réponses à ce sujet

[Anouk]

I hope EA give Bioware their time and space to build this next game as they intented to do.

For me as a player i realy hope Bioware is taking their time to build the game that they wanted to build.

[Shermos]

I hope EA give Bioware their time and space to build this next game as they intented to do.

For me as a player i realy hope Bioware is taking their time to build the game that they wanted to build.

 

The very earliest stages of development started in about September (iirc) 2012. If the game ships in March 2016 as some are predicting, it will have been in the oven for over close to 3 and half years. That's plenty of time for a well funded developer with a large team to make a great game.

[Linkenski]

Don't agree with dat Ark Theory, but I have to agree with this, at least in a sort of way.

We might want to at least take a glance towards DAI here, even if BW has said they won't be sooo similar.

Haven --> Skyhold
??? (Trilogy Like?) --> ??? (New Age of Mass Effect Like?)

Wow. What a stretch!

[SwobyJ]

Wow. What a stretch!

 

A stretch, but a fun one.

[kalikilic]

Let's keep this civil, constructive, and on-topic, please.

2012 taboo much? i was enjoying where this was heading. 

 

this could have ended in any combination of ways.

 

The initial post from Dubozz is a valid feature though. 

[Maverick888]

The very earliest stages of development started in about September (iirc) 2012. If the game ships in March 2016 as some are predicting, it will have been in the oven for over close to 3 and half years. That's plenty of time for a well funded developer with a large team to make a great game.

 

Indeed.

 

http://www.ibtimes.c...producer-849571

 

 

I hope EA give Bioware their time and space to build this next game as they intented to do.

For me as a player i realy hope Bioware is taking their time to build the game that they wanted to build.

 

I believe they are. ME3 was revealed in late 2010 and had a release date of 2011 which got pushed to 2012. If you go back to that time period, they released a bit too much in terms of content and features, than they should have. Of course this is my opinion. This time, they revealed ME4 in 2012, and we are in 2015 and we have only seen concept art, and don't even have a name yet, with vague features... so far it will contain no shepard, krogans, salarians and space.

 

I think they are taking their sweet time making this game.

[wright1978]

Reading those tweets the most worrying one for me is "Having the protagonist feel the weight of each decision he/she makes and become stressed over them.” Ahh. Just like my job." . Really i don't want a repeat of those awful forced dream sequences and force character stress upon the player.

[Chala]

Indeed.

 

http://www.ibtimes.c...producer-849571

 

 

 

I believe they are. ME3 was revealed in late 2010 and had a release date of 2011 which got pushed to 2012. If you go back to that time period, they released a bit too much in terms of content and features, than they should have. Of course this is my opinion. This time, they revealed ME4 in 2012, and we are in 2015 and we have only seen concept art, and don't even have a name yet, with vague features... so far it will contain no shepard, krogans, salarians and space.

 

I think they are taking their sweet time making this game.

 

I'm pretty sure that the first concepts were shown in 2013 during N7 Day.

[InterrogationBear]

I'm pretty sure that the first concepts were shown in 2013 during N7 Day.

Bioware announced the development of ME:Next when the Doctors left. 

[Chala]

Bioware announced the development of ME:Next when the Doctors left. 

You are right.
I completely forgot about that article

[Linkenski]

Reading those tweets the most worrying one for me is "Having the protagonist feel the weight of each decision he/she makes and become stressed over them.” Ahh. Just like my job." . Really i don't want a repeat of those awful forced dream sequences and force character stress upon the player.

But the idea is still good... they just need to make it so we aren't forced to feel traumatized and if we are it has to be something we can all relate to.

 

Remember, Mac isn't the writer anymore. He has some good ideas and admittedly he always had a couple of those but everytime he penned them out I was sitting with mouse and keyboard, looking at my screen and cringing at the result.

 

Mac just can't write well, look at ME3's intro, the ending, post-Thessia, the dreams or his comics... but hopefully Christopher Schlerf is very good for writing Mass Effect and hopefully Mac can pull it off being creative lead.

[Heimdall]

Reading those tweets the most worrying one for me is "Having the protagonist feel the weight of each decision he/she makes and become stressed over them.” Ahh. Just like my job." . Really i don't want a repeat of those awful forced dream sequences and force character stress upon the player.

Its not an easy balance. The problem with RPG protagonists in general is giving the player some room to define them while also giving the impression of depth and immersion in the story. The ideal is to give the player control over the level of stress the PC displays, I suppose.

[Iakus]

Reading those tweets the most worrying one for me is "Having the protagonist feel the weight of each decision he/she makes and become stressed over them.” Ahh. Just like my job." . Really i don't want a repeat of those awful forced dream sequences and force character stress upon the player.

I'll take the dream sequences if it means we don't get another "weighty" choice like RGB to "become stressed over"

[shepskisaac]

Its not an easy balance. The problem with RPG protagonists in general is giving the player some room to define them while also giving the impression of depth and immersion in the story. The ideal is to give the player control over the level of stress the PC displays, I suppose.

They had zero issues getting that balance just right in ME1 and ME2, and in their previous games with non-voiced Player Characters. No one really complained. To me it looks like too much infatuation with pre-defined "mascot" protagonists from AAA action adventure games from PS360 gen and forgetting that ME was suppoused to be an RPG

[wright1978]

But the idea is still good... they just need to make it so we aren't forced to feel traumatized and if we are it has to be something we can all relate to.

 

Remember, Mac isn't the writer anymore. He has some good ideas and admittedly he always had a couple of those but everytime he penned them out I was sitting with mouse and keyboard, looking at my screen and cringing at the result.

 

Mac just can't write well, look at ME3's intro, the ending, post-Thessia, the dreams or his comics... but hopefully Christopher Schlerf is very good for writing Mass Effect and hopefully Mac can pull it off being creative lead.

 

Don't think there's any good way forcing traumatisation on a player characterised protagonist. Now if they can pull off empowering the player to be affected or not affected equally well that would be good. However if it's a choice between the awful forced emotion of ME3 or the ME1/2 approach i'll happily plump for ME1/2 any of the week.

[ElitePinecone]

Mac Walters ‏@macwalterslives 

Thanks for the great tweets everyone. And yes, we do listen, your feedback is very important to the team. Now... Off to MTL once again!

 

 

(MTL is Montreal, if anyone was wondering.)

[shepskisaac]

 

MTL is Montreal, if anyone was wondering.)

 

No it's not, it means Making Trailer Leak, thx Mac we love u

[Linkenski]

Don't think there's any good way forcing traumatisation on a player characterised protagonist. Now if they can pull off empowering the player to be affected or not affected equally well that would be good. However if it's a choice between the awful forced emotion of ME3 or the ME1/2 approach i'll happily plump for ME1/2 any of the week.

A moment like the death of Kaidan or Ashley in ME1 was greatly reflected through the interactive dialogue and I got immersed in my Shepard feeling that he wasn't able to save everyone... and I think if it took DA:I's approach with emotional response dialogue wheels they could take stuff like that even further.

 

I'm certainly not asking for any more nightmare sequences or something like that. I just agree that if bad things happen to our player character, either directly or indirectly within the plot we should be able to reflect on it and it should be able to scar him emotionally if that's what we feel.

 

Like, what if they used the Casino Royale or FFVII idea of killing off our LI in the plot, that should have serious ramifications on any individual so if that happened in Mass Effect we should be able to choose between shaking it off in that renegade psychopathic way or dealing with it if we personally feel that it should be a scarring experience for our character.

[Outrider42]

Don't think there's any good way forcing traumatisation on a player characterised protagonist. Now if they can pull off empowering the player to be affected or not affected equally well that would be good. However if it's a choice between the awful forced emotion of ME3 or the ME1/2 approach i'll happily plump for ME1/2 any of the week.

The issue with the character remorse is that it was not a choice in the matter. Perhaps if the player is allowed to choose how they feel it could work better. We have dialog options, there should options with in that dialog that allow us to express emotion as well. It could lead to some goofy moments, sure, but it could be pretty interesting.

 

It should be possible to play a character who is full renegade and yet feels a bit guilty, or be a full renegade that is a total bastard who just doesn't care.

 

Here's an example. Let's say you have a hostage situation. You have your normal options, and maybe a renegade option is to go in and shoot the hostage taker. But you have 2 choices here: You can "shoot in cold blood," or you can "reluctantly kill the hostage taker" instead. Both actions do the same thing, yet they are totally different.

These choices determine how your character feels about his actions afterward. It allows the player to choose whether or not they want to bear that weight. 

 

It would take a lot of work, and it could make for some rather complex dialog options, but what this does is give the player a feeling of unprecedented control over this character.

 

I also think it would be fascinating to see what the statistics are on player choices like that.

[Heimdall]

They had zero issues getting that balance just right in ME1 and ME2, and in their previous games with non-voiced Player Characters.

Debatable. I'm not denying ME3 was the worse offender, but this is what I consider one of the primary shortcomings of the silent protagonist, especially in games were many if not all other characters are voiced: They feel removed from the world, cardboard cutouts standing in for the player. It's the opposite problem from ME3, but its still a problem.

No one really complained. To me it looks like too much infatuation with pre-defined "mascot" protagonists from AAA action adventure games from PS360 gen and forgetting that ME was suppoused to be an RPG

ME was always a hybrid, and Shepard always predefined, at least in part. I wouldn't go throwing around statements like "it's supposed to be an RPG" without remembering that there isn't really a standard definition for what an RPG even is. There were actually complaints in previous games about lack of reaction on Shepard's part, I see ME3 as a classic case of Bioware over-correction and a misguided stab at drama.

[Malanek]

The issue with the character remorse is that it was not a choice in the matter. Perhaps if the player is allowed to choose how they feel it could work better. We have dialog options, there should options with in that dialog that allow us to express emotion as well. It could lead to some goofy moments, sure, but it could be pretty interesting.

 

It should be possible to play a character who is full renegade and yet feels a bit guilty, or be a full renegade that is a total bastard who just doesn't care.

 

Here's an example. Let's say you have a hostage situation. You have your normal options, and maybe a renegade option is to go in and shoot the hostage taker. But you have 2 choices here: You can "shoot in cold blood," or you can "reluctantly kill the hostage taker" instead. Both actions do the same thing, yet they are totally different.

These choices determine how your character feels about his actions afterward. It allows the player to choose whether or not they want to bear that weight. 

 

It would take a lot of work, and it could make for some rather complex dialog options, but what this does is give the player a feeling of unprecedented control over this character.

 

I also think it would be fascinating to see what the statistics are on player choices like that.

This is an insightful post although I'm not sure the solution would be practical, so many decisions would branch out of control. A problem with making ME so cinematic is that although the player is given pretty good choice over a wide range of decisions, the game doesn't know the motivation behind any of the decisions and often assumes it incorrectly and depicts cutscenes in a frustrating manner because of that.

 

I wonder if at character creation time the player could set a bunch of sliders to describe various personality traits?

 

So just roughly something like... 

 

Emotional 1  2  3  4  5 Stoic

Caring 1  2  3  4  5  Callous

 

So for cutscenes that may show the protagonist distressed or traumatized it would look at the the players Emotional/Stoic characteristic and make a decision compared to how distressing the event was. In the decision you laid out in the above post it would look at the caring/Callous characteristic and make a decision on the players motivation based on that.

[Ajensis]

I wonder if at character creation time the player could set a bunch of sliders to describe various personality traits?

 

So just roughly something like... 

 

Emotional 1  2  3  4  5 Stoic

Caring 1  2  3  4  5  Callous

 

So for cutscenes that may show the protagonist distressed or traumatized it would look at the the players Emotional/Stoic characteristic and make a decision compared to how distressing the event was. In the decision you laid out in the above post it would look at the caring/Callous characteristic and make a decision on the players motivation based on that.

 

I like the idea behind the concept, but I have some thoughts about how it's outlined here.

 

First of all, just a small thing: I wouldn't have the choice at character creation, but rather after the prologue. This would give the player the opportunity to settle into your newly-created character, feed you some simple dialogue options and interactions (something basic that doesn't need the sliders to have been set already), allowing you a bit of time to get a feeling for what kind of character you'll be playing.

Secondly, I think it's risky to give the sliders too much power, especially for people who like to play Paragade/Renegon characters. They might have a character be generally stoic, but then something happens that the player feels strikes a soft spot in their character and they wish to have him/her react with uncharacteristic difficulty. If these sliders prevent that, however, it'll be very aggravating for the role-playing experience.

In short, it would have to be implemented with great care and I'm not entirely convinced the gain is worth it.

[Iakus]

 

I wonder if at character creation time the player could set a bunch of sliders to describe various personality traits?

 

So just roughly something like... 

 

Emotional 1  2  3  4  5 Stoic

Caring 1  2  3  4  5  Callous

 

Interesting idea, but probably unrealistic.  Part of the problem is going to be the word budget.  There's only so many lines they'll be able to afford a VA to speak.  Varying the level of emotional depth so much is impractical.  The weakness of a voiced protagonist.

[Vortex13]

Interesting idea, but probably unrealistic.  Part of the problem is going to be the word budget.  There's only so many lines they'll be able to afford a VA to speak.  Varying the level of emotional depth so much is impractical.  The weakness of a voiced protagonist.

 

 

Very true. I wonder how much reactivity and depth of role-play could be had if BioWare went back to a silent protagonist.

[Chala]

Very true. I wonder how much reactivity and depth of role-play could be had if BioWare went back to a silent protagonist.

 

In terms of options to chose, I'd say more, but it pretty much depends on how many are voicing the game. A game where almost no one speaks (Fallout 1) will have more freedom than one where only NPC have a voice.

Also, you have to consider what kind of game you want to make, a silent protagonist in a cinematic rpg can make things pretty awkward and spoil the inmersion. But if you are aiming for something with more gameplay and in-game scenes (Elder Scrolls, Half-Life, etc.), having a voiced main character can give you more limitations than a silent one.