46 réponses à ce sujet

[Emzamination]

Blastback wrote...

The thing is I think that there need to be those third options which lets the player avoid making choices that will upset them. I get how some people enjoy the conflicted hero who takes actions that makes him hate himself, but for a game, I can't enjoy it. It's just depressing. Which is something I have enough of in real life, I don't need that forced on me in my entertainment. ME3 did it right for most of the game, until the end, where in order to have a chance of surviving, you have to kill an entire species.

War is not nice nor fun, in war people will die and sacrifices WILL have to be made and we must harden our hearts and be strong enough to make the tough decisions that need to be made.Sometimes 1000 must die so 1,000,000,0000 can live.If you're not up for that, the life of a mercernary/soldier/saviour is not for you.

Modifié par Emzamination, 26 juin 2012 - 03:10 .

[EricHVela]

Emzamination wrote...

Blastback wrote...

The thing is I think that there need to be those third options which lets the player avoid making choices that will upset them. I get how some people enjoy the conflicted hero who takes actions that makes him hate himself, but for a game, I can't enjoy it. It's just depressing. Which is something I have enough of in real life, I don't need that forced on me in my entertainment. ME3 did it right for most of the game, until the end, where in order to have a chance of surviving, you have to kill an entire species.

War is not nice nor fun, in war people will die and sacrifices WILL have to be made and we must harden our hearts and be strong enough to make the tough decisions that need to be made.Sometimes 1000 must die so 1,000,000,0000 can live.If you're not up for that, the life of a mercernary/soldier/saviour is not for you.

I agree that all-out war against equal or superior forces cannot have anything more than a (real) bitter-sweet conclusion.

Yet, BW immediately following such a story with another one in another of their IPs seems a bit much.

I still think BW needs to convince EA that Dragon Age's story is not yet done. There's still a lot of ground to cover. (I did not intend a pun, but I like it.)

There's still a lot of $$$ to be made by having more than one more puzzle piece left. If the series continues through parallel stories of other heroes in other parts of Thedas, they could sell games for a long time before they have everything they need for a grand finale -- the final hero's story.

I also think that any Dragon Age multiplayer needs to be a separate product altogether (or, at most, an add-on module that comes after the completion of the SP game development).

Getting players invested into the game's story is what keeps them buying future games. Multiplayer has shown that a strong, cohesive story has no place there. Such will get people to play together, but it won't convince them to buy the next game. If the story is too deep in the multiplayer, they won't buy the next game because it gets in the way. If the story is too shallow, there might as well be no single player version after that, because nobody will care for it anymore.

Once a game goes completely multiplayer, thazzit. You now have just another MP game out there with different graphics. It's the death knell for story-driven, single-player games if they make MP intrude upon SP, either by the limited story restrictions required for MP or by requiring MP for SP advancement.

Keep SP strictly SP and MP strictly MP. Keeping them as separate games altogether makes that work the best. Heck. Let someone with a lot of MP experience develop a separate (and likely non-canon, free from "sticking-with-the-story" restrictions) MP game apart from the (story-driven, free from MP story limitations) SP series.

Also, EA needs to get over the whole "gotta release the product for all platforms at the same time". BWE needs to focus on one platform and, then, turn over development for the other platforms to other departments (EA subsidiaries or properties). This has worked fairly well for them in the past, better than universal platform development.

Adobe used to make the mistake of trying to make their products the exact same on PCs and Macs. They finally figured out that they needed to treat Windows differently than OSX. Their popularity on Windows shot straight up.

The same goes for games. An XBox game is not suited for Windows or PS3. Windows and PS3 people need something different for their controls and interface. Let the devs make one game and let the others make a conversion for the other platforms. The delay in releases does not seem to bother a lot of people in the end, regardless of their whining. Once it's out, their whining about not having it for their platform stops.

I have yet to whine about an XBox game not being for Windows. The ones that I have wanted, so far, have always come out for Windows eventually -- and, sometimes, were improved on Windows and often with all the add-ons already included. If the other platform developer improves the game for the other platforms, the numbers probably show that people who have the game on one platform will still get the game on the other. (I don't have access to such numbers, though.)

EA seems to be trying to maximize immediate profits instead of using models that might continue to bring income for longer projects down-the-road. It's difficult to predict what's going to succeed in that method, but there's also the possible loss for not taking the risk in investment. It is my belief that the DA series would work with the long-term investment plan -- but, to iterate, it's just my belief, however strong that may be for me.

OY! That's a long post! Whattheheckhappened?!

Modifié par ReggarBlane, 26 juin 2012 - 01:47 .

[WotanAnubis]

What I sincerely hope Bioware has learned between DA2 and ME3 is that Endings Matter. Endings are the emotional pay-off of any story. I'm not saying it has to be happy, mind, just that it has to be good (good as in quality).

Botching the ending robs the player of a satisfying experience, inevitably leaving a sour taste and making the rest of the game look worse than it deserved. My favourite go-to example here is Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean - awesome game, but the ending was so bad I sold it. I later regretted doing so, because the rest of the game was still good, but it just demonstrates how important a good ending is.

[Emzamination]

ReggarBlane wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

Blastback wrote...

The thing is I think that there need to be those third options which lets the player avoid making choices that will upset them. I get how some people enjoy the conflicted hero who takes actions that makes him hate himself, but for a game, I can't enjoy it. It's just depressing. Which is something I have enough of in real life, I don't need that forced on me in my entertainment. ME3 did it right for most of the game, until the end, where in order to have a chance of surviving, you have to kill an entire species.

War is not nice nor fun, in war people will die and sacrifices WILL have to be made and we must harden our hearts and be strong enough to make the tough decisions that need to be made.Sometimes 1000 must die so 1,000,000,0000 can live.If you're not up for that, the life of a mercernary/soldier/saviour is not for you.

I agree that all-out war against equal or superior forces cannot have anything more than a (real) bitter-sweet conclusion.

Yet, BW immediately following such a story with another one in another of their IPs seems a bit much.

I still think BW needs to convince EA that Dragon Age's story is not yet done. There's still a lot of ground to cover. (I did not intend a pun, but I like it.)

There's still a lot of $$$ to be made by having more than one more puzzle piece left. If the series continues through parallel stories of other heroes in other parts of Thedas, they could sell games for a long time before they have everything they need for a grand finale -- the final hero's story.

I also think that any Dragon Age multiplayer needs to be a separate product altogether (or, at most, an add-on module that comes after the completion of the SP game development).

Getting players invested into the game's story is what keeps them buying future games. Multiplayer has shown that a strong, cohesive story has no place there. Such will get people to play together, but it won't convince them to buy the next game. If the story is too deep in the multiplayer, they won't buy the next game because it gets in the way. If the story is too shallow, there might as well be no single player version after that, because nobody will care for it anymore.

Once a game goes completely multiplayer, thazzit. You now have just another MP game out there with different graphics. It's the death knell for story-driven, single-player games if they make MP intrude upon SP, either by the limited story restrictions required for MP or by requiring MP for SP advancement.

Keep SP strictly SP and MP strictly MP. Keeping them as separate games altogether makes that work the best. Heck. Let someone with a lot of MP experience develop a separate (and likely non-canon, free from "sticking-with-the-story" restrictions) MP game apart from the (story-driven, free from MP story limitations) SP series.

Also, EA needs to get over the whole "gotta release the product for all platforms at the same time". BWE needs to focus on one platform and, then, turn over development for the other platforms to other departments (EA subsidiaries or properties). This has worked fairly well for them in the past, better than universal platform development.

Adobe used to make the mistake of trying to make their products the exact same on PCs and Macs. They finally figured out that they needed to treat Windows differently than OSX. Their popularity on Windows shot straight up.

The same goes for games. An XBox game is not suited for Windows or PS3. Windows and PS3 people need something different for their controls and interface. Let the devs make one game and let the others make a conversion for the other platforms. The delay in releases does not seem to bother a lot of people in the end, regardless of their whining. Once it's out, their whining about not having it for their platform stops.

I have yet to whine about an XBox game not being for Windows. The ones that I have wanted, so far, have always come out for Windows eventually -- and, sometimes, were improved on Windows and often with all the add-ons already included. If the other platform developer improves the game for the other platforms, the numbers probably show that people who have the game on one platform will still get the game on the other. (I don't have access to such numbers, though.)

EA seems to be trying to maximize immediate profits instead of using models that might continue to bring income for longer projects down-the-road. It's difficult to predict what's going to succeed in that method, but there's also the possible loss for not taking the risk in investment. It is my belief that the DA series would work with the long-term investment plan -- but, to iterate, it's just my belief, however strong that may be for me.

OY! That's a long post! Whattheheckhappened?!

Ray has already stated that making dragon age pc -> console was a mistake because the pc is much more complicatedly diverse so future endeavors will always be Console -> pc since that transition is virtually seamless.

[rapscallioness]

Hmm, well, as long as I get my sweet, sweet risk/reward; Dopamine surging through my blood pay off in the end. Whether end of game, or end of one battle........then do whatever you must.

But don't mess with the dopamine.

*shifty eyes*

[Dave of Canada]

Brockololly wrote...

I think in the case of something like the Werewolf/Dalish choice, one way to make it feel more impactful would have been if you had a companion on each side of that conflict, like you have Tali/Legion on each side of the Quarian/Geth conflict. It makes the more abstract bigger issue into something more personal, and, makes for a tougher choice if you like either of the companions, knowing there isn't a third option out (unless there is a third option).

Somewhat agree, though having characters being involved in every decision would ultimately make them feel like they're tagged along simply for the drama of it. Using DA2 as an example, Anders seems forced to tag along with you if only to push the "OMG MAGES" issue and you can't outright refuse him.

Tali / Legion had more building up to the conflict (though Tali was a Quarian encyclopedia in ME1 and had little character) and the decision on Rannoch, something similar would be difficult to pull off in situations like the Werewolf/Dalish choice because there's a hard fit for personal conflict in the werewolf side of things.

Adding more reasoning / consequences behind all the decisions which impacted your goal personally would be what I'd do for such conflicts. Hearing the impact your forces are doing, having people talk to you about them and their effects. For example:

• Werewolves protect everyone from the Blight and are stronger than the Dalish, though they're uncontrollable and some turn feral while fighting and infect other people.
• Dalish (under Zathrian) abandon some humans to Darkspawn, though they're incredibly effective under his leadership and his ancient knowledge helps treat some diseases and infections.
• Dalish (under whatsherface) protect human caravans but they're far less effective than the other two groups, her medicinal knowledge is great but not as good as Zathrian. Ex-Werewolves also help as soldiers.

So are you implying the player should have had more opportunity to affect the outcome of Leandra's plot or that there should have been more variability in how Hawke or the companions reacted to the preordained outcome of Leandra's plot?

Both, Leandra's plot was very disconnected from the game as a whole and needed more involvement overall--especially since the plot is supposed to be a "personal" take.

The events seem to occur randomly without Hawke's involvement, ties into a side-quest you've got prior which was also very disconnected from act 2 (but made primary due to the forces of "but thou must") and then you've got the sympathy scenes with your LI/Aveline and Gamlen (which were great!) but quickly disappear.

It felt rather... pointless? I mean, Leandra's death further rubbed in the fact that Hawke was powerless but didn't really feel "personal", especially considering the game was mostly supposed to be about Hawke and his family--which played a very minor role in everything past act 1.

The game didn't really gain or lose anything by eliminating Leandra, the DLC scene with Leandra's "ghost" comforting Hawke is something I'd like to see a bit more. Akin to Shepard's weird fascination with the ghost-kid, though least Hawke could portray more than one emotion and it was something personal.

I'm imagining something like a protagonist similar to Loghain having to confront their "Cailan", maybe coming at peace with their demons or aggressively lashing out while still dealing with the ramifications of their choice. Rather than the event occuring, the protagonist being sad and then it goes on like nothing happened.

So, more personal involvement in the character's fate and the character simply not shrugging after being sad for five minutes.

I agree there should have been more ways for the player to have been involved in that. Even if there was a third option to save Leandra but with some delayed consequence that bites you in the ass down the line- like being able to save her but doing so lets Quentin get away only to do something worse later on.

I'd love to see third options with consequences of their own.

This sort of thing would probably need to work like Alpha Protocol and the hubs in how certain choices and the order you approached the hubs affected the plot and what characters you'd end up meeting.

Considering DA3 will no doubt involve multiple factions at work with different ideologies and goals, this is why I'd love to see the most out of Alpha Protocol and hard decisions come into play.

I mean, you've got:
Divine, her Templar and her Seekers.
Lord-Seeker Lambert, his Seekers and his Templar.
Grand Enchanter Fiona and her mages.
Celene and her loyalists.
Gaspard and his men.
Flemeth and her daughters.
Morrigan.

... and all the in-between, like Chantry Loyalist mages and the like. Allowing the player's loyalties to shift around based on personal beliefs and the goals those factions wish to achieve depend on the player and what they're willing to do.

I'd love to see the option to kidnap an entire regiment of Templar and using their blood in a ritual to protect a mage encampment if I was playing a pro-mage character, though not doing it shouldn't result in the encampment being fine and the war effort being unhindered.

The problem with ME3 at least was too often the game automatically gave Shepard internal motivations and feelings- like the stupid PTSD nightmares of the dumb kid. That kind of gets to the issue of whether you're going to have a more clearly fixed protagonist or a player character thats truly of the player's creation.

I fault the auto-dialogue for that, mostly. Most Shepard's personalities--despite how limited it was--were shattered in ME3.

the end of Origins could have sort of went this way, if you romanced Morrigan and she ends up leaving- you have the chance to tell Alistair or Anora you're going to go look for her.

That was great, being able to select what your character was going to do post-Blight was a minor scene but great at character definining. Many ways the "I'm going after Morrigan" line could be interpreted.

It would be nice for more moments a la the end of Metal Gear Solid 3-  Snake "winning" and being praised for his accomplishments but feeling like **** on the inside knowing he had to kill someone he loved-except with a greater sense of player agency as the player has genuine choices and diverging consequences.

Basically what I'm looking for. Loved MGS3 and the ending wrecked me, though I'd like to have those choices presented towards me. Being given a harrowing choice where I'm thinking "oh... ****..." and I'm spending a lot of time on the dialogue screen is the kind of experience I'd love.

Which occured to me plenty in the GOT game.

[Dave of Canada]

Withidread wrote...

They do exist. There's exceptions to every rule, but, in general, people want happy endings and so depressing literature / films / video games / etc... are not as popular as those that are not.

Sorry, but... what? Look at the top selling games of this generation geared towards adult audiences,  most are grim and rarely have happy endings (most end on a bittersweet note). Hell, look at IMDB's top 250 or the top-selling books--most tend to not have happy endings.

People are attracted to the human condition and all the good / bad with it.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 29 juin 2012 - 04:39 .

[rapscallioness]

[*]
[*]
[*]You know, Dave, I really like this, but can they pull this off in a practical way? They seem to struggle with this type of complexity integrated into a player choice thing. The variables they'd have to address seem to boggle them. Understandably. Don't get me wrong. It seems massive.
[*]I would love to see these types of choice/consequence. Even small ones like some guard I killed has a psycho girlfriend that hunts me down.
[*]There was one scene in DA2 about that elf girl that got abducted. We see her years later and find out she's become a guard with Aveline. Mostly because of the impact of Hawke. More of that would be nice.
[*]And yes, I'm bullet pointing for some unknown reason................where is that darn button...?

Modifié par rapscallioness, 29 juin 2012 - 05:15 .

[rapscallioness]

Also the thing with Leandra. That hit me very hard. I was stricken over that.

It only affected my Hawke in the dialogue choices I made after that. Before that I played as sarcastic FemHawke. And loved it. Even Aveline told me one day you may not be able to be so glib.

After the Leandra ordeal, I felt my Hawke should be more...hard. Not so clever. So, I started choosing the more aggressive responses.

It would have been nice if one of my companions remarked on it..once. But that's prolly too much. Lol.

But maybe in a resonable way they will incorporate more C/C in DA3. It seems DA2 had a purpose. It was a set up, and they didn't want it to stray too far from what Thedas needed to be in DA3. Maybe now they will have more narrative freedom to let the players affect the world more.

edit: but there were also large time lapses in DA2. So,a bit after the tragedy---next thing you know 3 years has passed. Perhaps Hawke came to terms with it. Although....

I also started leaning away from the mage cause after that. Right, or wrong to blame them all, blame them all I did. No one noticed, but okay. I noticed, for what it was worth.

Modifié par rapscallioness, 29 juin 2012 - 05:40 .

[Dave of Canada]

Hard to say how they'd handle it, far too much information isn't available to me to make any estimation. Though, assuming somewhat on the high scale of schedule and funding:

Reusing assets could be integrated into the setting, such as incorperating a fortress and having your loyalty shift who owns it. This would replace the protagonist's "camp" and larger choices will alter the reactions and characters which appear in the fortress.

For example, the fortress is filled with mages. You're given the choice of defending them or siding with the Templar and trying to force them out, both choices lead to the fortress becoming your home but your personal faction resides within and any following decision will impact it.

Now, imagine you've fended off the Templar and protected the mages. then you'd wander the fortress and see mages sitting around fires / practicing spells / teaching / drinking and talking about the war effort and what they think about your protagonist.

Examples:
"Do you think we'll win this? I just want to return to the Circle, live in a warm bed and eat a meal..."
"Calm now, dear. With [protagonist] on our side, victory is all but assured. We'll be able to start a cottage to ourselves soon enough, sleep in our own beds and eat our own meals."
"Do you mean that?"

"Did you hear what happened at the chapel in Val Royeaux?"
"No, what?"
"[Protagonist] insulted the Lord-Seeker infront of the people, [s]he unsheathed his blade and a riot ensued!"
"Ha, I'd love to have seen that!"

This isn't any different than how ME3 treated the Normandy, though the Normandy was a very general location and your crew served you regardless of affiliations (as Shepard didn't have much say in who they worked for). Once a hub and choice references is introduced, you can play the player's emotions even more.

Now imagine you've just arrived from a battle where you had to abandon a regiment of mages led by Alisteir (see what I did there? I am creative.), the mood among the people in the fortress can change. 
Companions throughout the fortress talk about it with others, maybe they defend you or join in with the bashing behind your back based on your relationship with them (hell, maybe companions that like you begin to have doubts and confront you too).

"Did you see the look on the men's faces upon returning from Montfort?"
"They looked like ghosts, what happened?"
[Companion] "Our "glorious" general left Alisteir and his men behind when the battle started turning sour."
"That coward, doesn't he know what the Lord-Seeker does to captured mages?!"
"Apparently they're hanging off Montfort's walls..." (maybe you saw this occur in the previous cutscene when your men are moving out, your character looks disgusted / pissed off / sad before cutting back to the fortress)
"I don't want to hear anymore of this."

Introduce confrontation, maybe the mage shopkeep who hadn't talked much about his personal life and views approaches you and shoves you to the ground. Calls you out and insults you, says his lover was among the mages in the regiment and now there's no point in him continuing to fight without anything to look foward post-war. Player can comfort, dismiss or respond aggressively. Ect.

Outside of the mage / templar side of things, siding with Gaspard / Empress Celene / ect could result in additional men and women showing up in the fortress. Perhaps the mages insult you though your sacrifice gained Gaspard much, resulting in Gaspard's men in the fortress defending you from the mage's insults.

Perhaps you sacrificed too much and those men and women aren't as loyal as you need them to be, having them turn their back on you at a vital moment *or* you haven't sacrificed enough and the war effort isn't going as smoothly as you'd want it to be going--removing a "third choice" which could've benefit you greatly at the time.

Protagonist: Men, move forward! We've got Celene cornered, we can force her to recognise Gaspard as Emperor and end this civil war now!
"This isn't our war, protagonist! Maybe you've forgotten that, perhaps you never cared! We're not dying for your master's petty war!"
Protagonist: Come back, cowards! Don't let Alisteir, Andersia and Merrillson's deaths be for naught!
[mages walk away leaving you greatly unmanned]
[violent skirmish which greatly angers Gaspard and doesn't end the civil war]

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 30 juin 2012 - 07:54 .

[TEWR]

I agree with a lot of what Dave and Brockololly have already said. There's not much for me to add to the discussion at this point in time, other then that I felt the exact same sense of personal anguish at MGS3's ending as you two did.

During the fight with the Boss, I was having a tough time keeping myself together. Not gonna lie, MGS3 and MGS4 made me cry.

True art right there. When a video game can make you fall apart -- or to the point where you're on the verge of doing so -- then it's truly a work of art.

EDIT: To go a bit more in depth on my fight with the Boss and how it made me feel -- and this will probably be tangentially related to the topic at hand, if not completely so...
 
Though MGS is not a series that focuses on player agency and roleplaying in the sense of "Here's what my character did", I was able to do something with the gameplay that in retrospect is roleplaying -- and could be/should be/is applied to RPGs themselves where the character you play as is in fact yours.

You're given 10 minutes to defeat The Boss before the Russian forces decimate the area. For the first few minutes, I really couldn't bring myself to fight her. Moreover, I couldn't bring Snake to fight her. That personal anguish I was feeling during that confrontation carried over to Snake himself.

Then after a while, I felt I would be doing her a disservice by refusing to battle at all, and begrudgingly moved into fight mode.

A feeling like that in a game like Dragon Age where I could (optionally) fight a character I've grown to know, respect, and even like and be able to do something similar with the gameplay would be amazing.

Gameplay contributing to roleplaying, rather then being separate from it. Then the personal anguish would be amplified and better conveyed, personally speaking. So I think -- and I'm sure I'm not alone in this -- that gameplay should play just as much a role in the roleplaying as the choices themselves.

Although I wouldn't want all choices to be full of despair and hardship. I'd like to very much earn my happy ending sometimes, so to speak.

Dave of Canada wrote...

Which occured to me plenty in the GOT game.

How is that game anyway, if you were to judge it overall? Is it good or is it another "Bad video game based off of movies/TV shows" with just some interesting elements to its design?

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 30 juin 2012 - 12:00 .

[Lucy Glitter]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Withidread wrote...

They do exist. There's exceptions to every rule, but, in general, people want happy endings and so depressing literature / films / video games / etc... are not as popular as those that are not.

Sorry, but... what? Look at the top selling games of this generation geared towards adult audiences,  most are grim and rarely have happy endings (most end on a bittersweet note). Hell, look at IMDB's top 250 or the top-selling books--most tend to not have happy endings.

People are attracted to the human condition and all the good / bad with it.

This is exactly the reason why the original, "everyone wants happy endings" argument is null and void.

[Heimdall]

Honestly, I think DA2 could have been world's better if there was some way to control what Hawke was doing during the time skips and have the intro to each act reflect these actions.  I'll give an example.

Say that, after Act One, Hawke was approached by Cullen and offered sort of job helping the templars hunt abominations and apostates.  Then Hawke may receive a letter from an anonymous friend of Anders that helps apostates and is asking for aid.  A third option may be given for Hawke to try and bolster the family's standing in some way.  Rejecting all these would simply give the result that Hawke choose to retain a low profile.

At the beginning of Act Two, Hawke may have Templars barging into the Amell home and launching an official investigation or a mage slipping in looking for a way out of the city.  Possibly noble suitors lining up outside the door ...  Even the lay low choice could result in criminal elements looking to hire Hawke.  Each of these could have led to questlines that could span both Acts Two and Three.

I liked moments like the mother's death, but I think that there should have been more, if equally tragic, ways for it to end.  I got lucky in DA2 since my initial character design for Hawke's personality fit in nicely with the available options for Hawke but there really isn't enough agency in DA2.  ME3 hit the nail on the head with Tuchanka because the tragedy of Shepard shooting Mordin was a choice rather than a bygone conclusion from the start.

[Blastback]

Emzamination wrote...

Blastback wrote...

The thing is I think that there need to be those third options which lets the player avoid making choices that will upset them. I get how some people enjoy the conflicted hero who takes actions that makes him hate himself, but for a game, I can't enjoy it. It's just depressing. Which is something I have enough of in real life, I don't need that forced on me in my entertainment. ME3 did it right for most of the game, until the end, where in order to have a chance of surviving, you have to kill an entire species.

War is not nice nor fun, in war people will die and sacrifices WILL have to be made and we must harden our hearts and be strong enough to make the tough decisions that need to be made.Sometimes 1000 must die so 1,000,000,0000 can live.If you're not up for that, the life of a mercernary/soldier/saviour is not for you.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not emotionally up for the life of a soldier.  But this isn't reality.  It's a video game.  I play them because their not reality.  It's fine to paint the harshness of war, to make you have to sacrifice like with Mordin or Virmire.  But an entire species?

I'll admit though, that my personal prefrences come at least in part from not being emotinally stable in real life. 

Modifié par Blastback, 08 juillet 2012 - 08:39 .

[txmn1016]

Hm. As far as story telling goes I think you're pretty much spot on. I'd like to see more choice in DAIII and the consequences of past choices (including the small choices that at the time seemed insignificant). The Leandra thing didn't bother me so much and I'm not really sure why. I think because at some point in any epic game/story, the main character feeling totally powerless and beaten is a good thing. ME3 had the same thing with Thessia which I also didn't have a problem with. It's a point in the game where, as a player, you're just thinking, "Oh god I'm so ****ed. How am I going to get out of this?" So overall I'd like to see a little more choice but I'm okay with there being some unavoidable elements in the story. It's not totally my story after all. I'm just another character.

As far as other things they could learn from ME3...well, I hope they've at least learned something about Multiplayer and Downloadable Content which developers have indicated will both be a major components of DAIII.

I hope they don't make MP a required component of the SP campaign like they did with ME3. I think that it has been decided that MP will be included, which is totally fine, but I want to be able to enjoy it on its own terms instead of feeling coerced into playing it in order to the get the full experience of the game. In other words, I don't want certain aspects of the game to be unavailable to me if I decide not to play MP. That's a real quick way to get me to stop paying attention to your games.

As far as DLC goes, I've heard rumors that the DLCs will be sort of cliffhanger-ish. In other words, you would have to keep purchasing DLC in order to find out what happens next in the universe. My major problem with this is, I feel like a game should be more or less finished/whole without DLC. A game/story should never feel incomplete without DLC and I really feel like ME3 came dangerously close to feeling that way without 'From Ashes' (the controversial day one DLC). I usually purchase almost all DLC anyway (with the exception being weapons packs and other related DLC stuff) but feeling like I have to buy it in order to get the full picture gives me a really icky feeling about the business practices of the company. Again, another sure-fire way to get me to stop playing the games.

[CELL55]

I think that there needs to be a 'golden' choice to serve as an attainable goal. Hard to reach, but attainable. For example, in order to secure peace between Geth and Quarians, you needed to do like half a dozen things over 2 games. I really felt like I earned that, that I worked hard for that. If all there was was choosing which race to kill, it wouldn't have felt as meaningful to me, as both are failures in my eyes. Why can't my hard work pay off? If all that I do is for naught, then why should I care about any of it? Nihilism, anyone?

[Raikas]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Aside from Tuchanka and Ranoch ME3 was not very good.

The problem with Mordins sacrifice is this. Either a couple of games of MP and it means nothing, or it means nothing in SP anyway since you will never reach that cap.

By adding MP they effectively gave you the best ending without ever having to do anything plot related.

I don't think the success of the character choices is particularly connected to whether or not you get the "best" ending - yes, technically you can get the "best" whether Mordin sacrifices himself, gets killed by Shep or survives but the tone changes. I think it's that change of atmosphere that indicates that those moments worked, not the outcome of the central plot.

That was was what impressed me the most about that game - that even though the plot would progress in the same way, the "flavour" would be totally different if your earlier choices had altered who was around. So even though you get the Sur'Kesh quest regardless of who leads the Krogan, Wrex and Wreav had totally different political plans - or even though you need to talk to the VS three times to keep them on your side during the coup, those conversations are completely different if you have Ashley than if you have Kaidan. And the examples are the same with most of the major kill-able characters - even if there's just an absence (like the Jondum Bau quest if Kasumi's dead) it changes the feeling of it.


I agree that it's not a flawless game, but I would only be impressed to see ME3-style character-based tone shift in DA3 (and other future games).   DA2 had the potential for some of that with Bethany/Carver, but the fact that the first death came so early (and the lack of choice beyond character class in determining the survivor) kept it from working in the same way.

Modifié par Hervoyl, 11 juillet 2012 - 01:15 .

[Iron_JG]

In some of these posts, it seems like people are choosing between happy and unhappy outcomes. You have to have both to be effective.
"Everyone always dies and everything is awful" is just as trite as "everyone lives and the hero makes everything all better." Both extremes are unrealistic, become horribly predictable, and wipe out any sense of player agency.
The key is interweaving victory and defeat, so the player feels like their character always has a chance to win or at least mitigate disaster. DA and ME are effective in that they made the player feel they had made the best of a bad situation. Being able to rack up even a few more wins than losses is usually enough to satisfy people.
In example, I didn't have any problem with Hawke being unable to save Leandra. I think it grounded him in a genre that too often makes the player a grand savior. It could have been better executed (as can most plots), but it was moving and effective to me.
In contrast, I did hate the ME3 endings for failing to diverge sufficiently. It seemed a lazy cop-out to not explain how Shepard had changed the course of galactic civilization. Going back to earlier points, even a Shepard who scored the 'best' outcomes in each game (recruit Rachni, preserve genophage cure, broker Geth/Quarian peace, etc.), set up some fascinating potential calamities. Each of Shepard's choices to invest in a multi-species utopia increased the risk of massive war after the Reapers. Rather than three flavors of "reset button," it would have been awesome to learn how Shepard won the war and potentially lost the peace.

As I've said in other posts, I think ME instructs DA to step away from heavily interconnected games and try to make excellent, more self-contained stories. If every game is about the same characters, bogged down in past decisions, and makes us play superheroes, it will stunt the setting's growth. Related to questions of player agency, I like Dave's take on supposedly ideal options -- they should be hard to achieve, and they should sometimes trade immediate losses for grave future risks. That would preserve a lot of mystery, and make the game stick with the player. The player should feel like they racked up more wins than losses -- but there's nothing wrong with the exact score being murky.

[azarhal]

Personally, I suspect DAII will be more about politics and probably less about a big bad. I also suspect the player won't be able to stop the "bad" stuff from happening, this mean that I expect a lot of crying on these forums upon release again. Some players believe they should control the story as opposed to live the events as they unfold.

I suspect some things hinted at in previous games/publications will be resolved when DAIII start. Mostly the Celene vs De Gaspard stuff and probably quite a few things related to the Templars vs Mages war as well.

I also expect to see an Orlais vs Nevarra war and not really any Templars vs Mages war. Why, because  the Mages moved to a fortress that stand right beside the Orlaisian border in land conquered by Nevarra not that long ago.

The whole thing is just waiting to implode...

[Blastback]

CELL55 wrote...

I think that there needs to be a 'golden' choice to serve as an attainable goal. Hard to reach, but attainable. For example, in order to secure peace between Geth and Quarians, you needed to do like half a dozen things over 2 games. I really felt like I earned that, that I worked hard for that. If all there was was choosing which race to kill, it wouldn't have felt as meaningful to me, as both are failures in my eyes. Why can't my hard work pay off? If all that I do is for naught, then why should I care about any of it? Nihilism, anyone?

Agreed

[Blue Gloves]

Brockololly wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...
One thing I'd like to see is similar situations being introduced in the Dragon Age universe. You've already got plenty of atrocities in both DAO and DA2, though usually they're not as involved. When you've wiped out the Dalish and sided with the Werewolves (or deciding to wipe out the mages in DA2), the group doesn't seem as sombre (though certain characters mention it).

I think in the case of something like the Werewolf/Dalish choice, one way to make it feel more impactful would have been if you had a companion on each side of that conflict, like you have Tali/Legion on each side of the Quarian/Geth conflict. It makes the more abstract bigger issue into something more personal, and, makes for a tougher choice if you like either of the companions, knowing there isn't a third option out (unless there is a third option).

 
I agree,I think they accomplished this to a certain degree in DAO w/ the Caridin/ Branka plot line.  If you kill Caridin, whether or not you end up making golems, Oghren is happy w/ you, but  Shale will either fight you (if she's there) massively disapprove, or actually up and leave you.  Whereas vice versa, and Oghren will disapprove, but you earn Shle's trust.  I think it would've been more impactful if you actually had to choose between Ogrhen and Shale- one would fight you no matter what unless you did things just so and managed to talk around a compromise of sorts.

[CELL55]

CELL55 wrote...

I think that there needs to be a 'golden' choice to serve as an attainable goal. Hard to reach, but attainable. For example, in order to secure peace between Geth and Quarians, you needed to do like half a dozen things over 2 games. I really felt like I earned that, that I worked hard for that. If all there was was choosing which race to kill, it wouldn't have felt as meaningful to me, as both are failures in my eyes. Why can't my hard work pay off? If all that I do is for naught, then why should I care about any of it? Nihilism, anyone?

I'd like to reiterate on the above point: if the only result is failure, then why am I playing? Why am I holding a controller if Anders blows up the Chantry with or without my help? The game ceases to be a game and instead becomes a movie or a book. Which is not to say that these things in movies or books are bad, but when I play a game, a game that promises choices with consequences, I expect my descisions to matter. If the game just turns out to be one long uninteractive cutscene, then the game is simply not making best use of the medium. Without the possibility of success, failure becomes shallow. The same could be said in reverse, but as a general rule, most people are just fine with winning the whole time. After all, it is a game. 

One last point I'd like to make: in the past, I have seen some people argue that including a 'rainbows and sunshine' solution to every problem makes the feel compelled to choose those options instead of more pessimistic outcomes that they may feel make a better overall story. And I say: Tough. If you want to choose a 'suboptimal' decision, then that's on you. Don't try to force others to conform to your opinion. Some people like happy endings, some like bittersweet ones, and some like tragic endings. And that's fine. But I think it is in both Bioware's and the audience's best interest that many different options are available, so that more people can enjoy and get invested in the wonderful Dragon Age IP.