778 réponses à ce sujet

[Maclimes]

To me, it all comes down to truly understanding what I'm saying. Let's say a mage runs up to you and says, "Help! A demon is attempting to invade my thoughts! Help me!"

One of my response options is "Yeah, I'll help you."

Perhaps I intended that to be a helpful honest response, and therefore actually assist him by entering the Fade or something similar.

Perhaps I intended it to be a threat, growled low under my voice as I ready my weapon, since the best way to help in that case is to kill him.

Perhaps I intended it as sarcasm, and have no intention of actually interacting with the mage at all.

When I say that out loud, there should be a clear reaction from the mage, since those three would be said in very obvious tones of voice. The "color coded icon" system let's me know what I'm actually saying in this case. Just the text may surprise you. You may choose the option, thinking it's sarcasm, and then suddenly find yourself entering the Fade, because you misunderstood the intention of the line.

Basically, we need the words AND the intent.

[jillabender]

Sylvius the Mad wrote…

jillabender wrote…

I agree that in real life, people don't always respond in a predictable way to a particular tone or intention, so NPC responses don't always need to be predictable in a game. But while I don't require NPC responses to be predictable, I do feel the need to be able to make sense of them.

Is this because you feel you can make sense of real world reactions, so to mimic real world behaviour the NPCs should also offer reactions of which you can make sense?

I think it's more that I'm drawn to stories in large part by the desire to understand the characters, and if a character's reaction puzzles me, I'll be motivated to pursue the story further in order to understand the character's behaviour at least a little bit more. If the story doesn't allow me to make any sense of a character's behaviour, my curiosity isn't satisfied, and I don't get the closure that I usually look for from stories (here I'm talking about stories that I pursue for entertainment – not experimental stories or stories that I read to carry out literary analysis).

Sylvius the Mad wrote…

I suspect you view conversations themselves as collaborative, where you and the other person work together to exchange information and reach a mutual understanding. That might explain your approach.

Yes, that describes me very well.

Sylvius the Mad wrote…

jillabender wrote…

Again, I agree that an NPC's response to my character doesn't dictate that I have to assume anything about the way my character delivered a line. In practice, though, I need to be able to believe that an NPC could plausibly respond to my character's tone or intent the way he or she does.

Here I think you're metagaming. I the real world, the reactions of other people don't need to satisfy your standard of plausibility. You accept them as they are - you saw that person behave in that way - and try to find out why. You could do the same thing in the game. Instead, you're looking at the NPC reaction from your own perspective (rather than your character's perspective), and seeing a disconnect. If you don't see how A caused B, then you presume that A isn't true. But in-game, from your character's perspect, the untruth of A isn't an option - your character knows what he just said and how he said it. He shouldn't question that.

Perhaps the difference here is that you would like your PC to seek clarification, just as you do in the real world, whereas I don't do that in the real world, so I don't mind if my character doesn't either.

Absolutely – if I were playing characters with a different style of social interaction, it might be easier for me to approach in-game conversations the way you suggest. But, as you say, I tend to play characters who, like me, would seek to understand the people around them, and to have a greater degree of control over the situation, by asking for clarification – especially in the case of a serious misunderstanding.

Another part of it is what I described earlier – I pursue stories partly in order to get a kind of closure that I might not be able to get from real-world interactions. If an interaction that baffled both me and my character never got any resolution in the story, the story would lack that kind of closure for me.

Modifié par jillabender, 13 juillet 2012 - 01:08 .

[AmstradHero]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I suspect you view conversations themselves as collaborative, where you and the other person work together to exchange information and reach a mutual understanding.  That might explain your approach.

How can you not view conversations as collaborative? By their very nature it involves two or more people in order to exchange information, opinions or emotions. If your not doing this, then you're just giving a speech - talking at someone rather than with someone.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

jillabender wrote...
Again, I agree that an NPC's response to my character doesn't dictate that I have to assume anything about the way my character delivered a line. In practice, though, I need to be able to believe that an NPC could plausibly respond to my character's tone or intent the way he or she does.

Here I think you're metagaming.  I the real world, the reactions of other people don't need to satisfy your standard of plausibility.  You accept them as they are - you saw that person behave in that way - and try to find out why.  You could do the same thing in the game.  Instead, you're looking at the NPC reaction from your own perspective (rather than your character's perspective), and seeing a disconnect.  If you don't see how A caused B, then you presume that A isn't true.  But in-game, from your character's perspect, the untruth of A isn't an option - your character knows what he just said and how he said it.  He shouldn't question that.

Perhaps the difference here is that you would like your PC to seek clarification, just as you do in the real world, whereas I don't do that in the real world, so I don't mind if my character doesn't either.

So basically where there's a disconnect between your perception of how you delivered the line and the NPC's reaction, you only follow your own perception. This can only lead to a situation where you break the internal consistency of the characterisation of NPCs in order to retain the consistency of your PC. That's not really an acceptable trade-off, and again, it assumes "everyone else in the world is wrong, and I am right". That's not a rational or reasonable approach to interactions.

[Cimeas]

Hmm I like voice acted characters to be honest, it allows me to imagine they have personality and lives on an emotional level and I'm happy they are keeping that.

But with voice acting you can't have the whole line, otherwise its really boring because everyone knows what the main character will say. With paraphrases you [as Hawke] might be interrupted, something could happen, or you might say something interesting, without just repeating what you [the players] have just clicked.

[Elvhen Veluthil]

A game with a voiced PC cannot be a RPG imho. It's against the definition, if you believe in that. I would be absolute about that, if it was not for Planescape: Torment. That game has a predefined character up to a point, and I am simply inclined to call it one of the greatest RPG of all time.

What would happen if nameless was voiced? I don't know. Maybe I would still feel about it the same way. But that game has magic in it, DA2 is not anywhere near that though, personally I don't categorize it as an RPG, you just play someone or something, as you do in all games.

[wsandista]

Elvhen Veluthil wrote...

A game with a voiced PC cannot be a RPG imho. It's against the definition, if you believe in that. I would be absolute about that, if it was not for Planescape: Torment. That game has a predefined character up to a point, and I am simply inclined to call it one of the greatest RPG of all time.

That is because the player could completely control TNS. With a voiced PC using the DW(or pretty much any dialgue system built around voiced PC), you can't do that. So the character will contradict the design the player creates. I consider games with a voiced PC to be Role Directing Games.

[Sylvius the Mad]

AmstradHero wrote...

How can you not view conversations as collaborative? By their very nature it involves two or more people in order to exchange information, opinions or emotions. If your not doing this, then you're just giving a speech - talking at someone rather than with someone.

Because you can't know the other person's objectives, conversations are adversarial.  Your goal is to express the information you want to express, acquire the information you want to acquire, and conceal the information you want to conceal.  But your goals and the other person's might be in conflict, so it behooves you to approach the conversation as adversarial.

So basically where there's a disconnect between your perception of how you delivered the line and the NPC's reaction, you only follow your own perception.

No.  There can't be a disconnect because the NPC reactions aren't predictable.  There's no NPC reaction that would make me question what my PC said or how he said it.

This can only lead to a situation where you break the internal consistency of the characterisation of NPCs in order to retain the consistency of your PC.

Since I don't have exhaustive knowledge of the NPC's mind, I can't ever know that they're inconsistent.  My PC might not understand them, but to say that they lack internal consistency requires an unsupported inference I can't imagine ever making.

At most, I might be able to determine that they lied to me.  That doesn't make them inconsistent; it makes them deceitful (and not very bright, given that they've apparently contradicted themselves).

That's not really an acceptable trade-off, and again, it assumes "everyone else in the world is wrong, and I am right". That's not a rational or reasonable approach to interactions.

I can't know whether other people are wrong.  Neither can you.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Cimeas wrote...

Hmm I like voice acted characters to be honest, it allows me to imagine they have personality and lives on an emotional level and I'm happy they are keeping that.

Why couldn't you imagine that before?  The primary objection to the voice is that it places within the game content that we think belongs only within the player's imagination.

But with voice acting you can't have the whole line, otherwise its really boring because everyone knows what the main character will say.

We need to know what the character will say so that we can choose lines appropriately.  What the PC doesn't say is just as important as what he does say (with regard to his objectives in that particular conversation), and we can't know what he doesn't say without having exhaustive knowledge of what he does.

[Sylvius the Mad]

ChookAttack wrote...

Admittedly both systems have the same amount of freedom to choose dialogue

They don't, actually.  Because the paraphrases hide the dialogue from you, you cannot reasonably be said to be choosing dialogue at all.  You're choosing the paraphrase, but your character doesn't speak the paraphrase (I often wished he would - the paraphrase was often more appropriate content).

Think of it like the game show Let's Make A Deal.  The contestants would choose to look behind one of three doors, and receive the prize that was behind that door.  Now imagine Door #2 hid a car, while Door #3 hid a goat.  If the contestant choosing Door #3, he didn't choose to win a goat.  You can't reasonably chastise him for not choosing the car instead (assuming he would have preferred the car), because he didn't know which prize was behind each door.

The same is true of DA2's paraphrases.  The player doesn't know what line he will get, so he cannot be reasonably described as have chosen that line at all.

DA2 and DAO offered roughly the same range of options (ignoring how DA2's voice locked in a specific delivery for each line, while DAO's silence did not), but DA2 offered no ability at all to choose among them.

[Daerog]

Maclimes wrote...

To me, it all comes down to truly understanding what I'm saying. Let's say a mage runs up to you and says, "Help! A demon is attempting to invade my thoughts! Help me!"

One of my response options is "Yeah, I'll help you."

Perhaps I intended that to be a helpful honest response, and therefore actually assist him by entering the Fade or something similar.

Perhaps I intended it to be a threat, growled low under my voice as I ready my weapon, since the best way to help in that case is to kill him.

Perhaps I intended it as sarcasm, and have no intention of actually interacting with the mage at all.

When I say that out loud, there should be a clear reaction from the mage, since those three would be said in very obvious tones of voice. The "color coded icon" system let's me know what I'm actually saying in this case. Just the text may surprise you. You may choose the option, thinking it's sarcasm, and then suddenly find yourself entering the Fade, because you misunderstood the intention of the line.

Basically, we need the words AND the intent.

Reminds me of Jade Empire. You can choose what you will say, and if it is showing your face, your character may be smiling as you hover over a choice, or the character will look angry if hovering over a different choice.

Honestly, I like the idea of having more control, add more ownership to your character. The auto voice and paraphrasing only makes it so the scene can be more dramatic like if someone was watching a movie. Such as someone yelling in a cutscene, and not have to have a companion say "Watch Out!" but allows the PC to do it, too. Difference between directing a character or being the character, I guess.

If I could choose, I would like to see voiceless "old school" stuff again. Although, I'm not passionate about it either way.
Paraphrasing can be annoying, only purpose is to make the the UI slick and not take up so much room so the visuals get more attention. Would be interesting for the option to have one or the other, then when gameplay feedback gets back to EA/BioWare, can see how people prefer it.

Modifié par DaerogTheDhampir, 13 juillet 2012 - 04:38 .

[AmstradHero]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

How can you not view conversations as collaborative? By their very nature it involves two or more people in order to exchange information, opinions or emotions. If your not doing this, then you're just giving a speech - talking at someone rather than with someone.

Because you can't know the other person's objectives, conversations are adversarial.  Your goal is to express the information you want to express, acquire the information you want to acquire, and conceal the information you want to conceal.  But your goals and the other person's might be in conflict, so it behooves you to approach the conversation as adversarial.

So basically where there's a disconnect between your perception of how you delivered the line and the NPC's reaction, you only follow your own perception.

No.  There can't be a disconnect because the NPC reactions aren't predictable.  There's no NPC reaction that would make me question what my PC said or how he said it.

This can only lead to a situation where you break the internal consistency of the characterisation of NPCs in order to retain the consistency of your PC.

Since I don't have exhaustive knowledge of the NPC's mind, I can't ever know that they're inconsistent.  My PC might not understand them, but to say that they lack internal consistency requires an unsupported inference I can't imagine ever making.

At most, I might be able to determine that they lied to me.  That doesn't make them inconsistent; it makes them deceitful (and not very bright, given that they've apparently contradicted themselves).

That's not really an acceptable trade-off, and again, it assumes "everyone else in the world is wrong, and I am right". That's not a rational or reasonable approach to interactions.

I can't know whether other people are wrong.  Neither can you.

This all implies that you as a character and/or roleplayer have no empathy or understanding of the NPCs with which you are interacting. As I stated before, this would be strongly indicative of someone with asperger's or autism. This results in the character lacking the necessary social skill or understanding to communicate in parameters that would be considered normal by the majority of society.

Since roleplaying is predicated on interactions with other people, then any catering for this niche market would be a confluence of fortune rather than any attempt to cater for this approach, because writing for that case would require a lack of social cues which would make it virtually impossible to possess the necessary skills to write the dialogue in the first place.

NPC reactions are predictable because they display particular character traits that informs the player how they will react to the player's actions and dialogue. e.g. being snarky or acting illegally will almost always earn the ire of Aveline. You can track exactly the same issues back to BG and BG2, where characters voice their disapproval if the character is too good/evil and does(n't) perform certain actions. These characters are written such that the player is given indications of their preferences and attitudes, meaning they can consider those when interacting with the character. Writers give NPCs a personality and then display it with in-game information. It is this characterisation that makes them memorable for players, because they have a consistent personality with which the player can empathise or admire (or love to hate). That's what writers do.

[Pygmali0n]

AmstradHero wrote...

This all implies that you as a character and/or roleplayer have no empathy or understanding of the NPCs with which you are interacting. As I stated before, this would be strongly indicative of someone with asperger's or autism. This results in the character lacking the necessary social skill or understanding to communicate in parameters that would be considered normal by the majority of society.

That goes a bit too far, with strangers, in business and with people I distrust (Bioware marketing for example), I generally follow Sylvius' adversarial model of conversations. With friends or family I try to be more collaborative, as we're calling it.

FemaleMageFan wrote...

"cinematics" is too vague. You want them to get rid of all cinematics then??

That's not what he means, even if he would prefer no cinematics bEVEsthda and other posters have clarified several times that the point is that Bioware seem to be focusing on cinematics at the expense of their traditional strengths in cohesive and involving story telling, gaming and role playing (there must be other reasons, but I don't think we'll actually draw them out on their assessment of what went wrong (other than our inability to appreciate the greatness of DA2), especially as it all seems still to be in the denial stage, at least publically).

I personally can enjoy limited cinematics, but they do seem to have become an obsession with Bioware to the detriment of their games. They keep on insisting that this is the way forward, despite not taking the fans with them and arguably contributing to reducing their sales.

Cinematics would seem to be the reason for turning DA2 into an anime cartoon - enabling the crossover DVD too - as real game technology is still too stuck in uncanny valley to make a film... so it just feels like BW want to remake Dragon's Lair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Lair) every 18 months.

Isometric Diablo 3 sold ridiculous amounts, DA:O, has outsold almost everything else BW have ever produced, I really can't understand why BW don't just make or buy a decent engine and churn out updated but good old-fashioned RPGs set in Thedas and build-up their way to TES-level sales, instead of gambling and trying to reinvent the wheel. And all this time and money making-up new systems and UIs seems a waste too.

p.s. Excellent thread (do favourite it and take the time to read it all through FemaleMageFan). Keep fighting the good fight all.

p.p.s. Mr Gaider, have confidence in games, like Twilight at ComicCon, you don't need films to make you great, rather the reverse happens.

Modifié par Pygmali0n, 13 juillet 2012 - 11:53 .

[AkiKishi]

I recall Diablo having some realy nice cinematics. And not a great deal of talking to people other than to buy/sell or get quests.

[Cimeas]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Cimeas wrote...

Hmm I like voice acted characters to be honest, it allows me to imagine they have personality and lives on an emotional level and I'm happy they are keeping that.

Why couldn't you imagine that before?  The primary objection to the voice is that it places within the game content that we think belongs only within the player's imagination.

But with voice acting you can't have the whole line, otherwise its really boring because everyone knows what the main character will say.

We need to know what the character will say so that we can choose lines appropriately.  What the PC doesn't say is just as important as what he does say (with regard to his objectives in that particular conversation), and we can't know what he doesn't say without having exhaustive knowledge of what he does.

Yeah I guess I can't really explain better than that, I just know that I prefer a voiced protagonist.  For example, if I imagine Mass Effect with a mute commander Shepard, I can't imagine having the same emotional attachement to that character and his relationships.  Of course, I would probably like the companions just the same, after all, I enjoyed Morrigan, Sten etc.. in DA:O, but the story wouldn't be the same.


I suppose that for me personally, I don't need the ability to choose exactly what my character does at every time, I'm happy with occasionally sitting back and allowing the writers to craft a more set, intriguing tale.  I like being able to choose who to romance, who to ally with (most of the time) and major decisions like who lives or dies in quests.  I also like using skills (e.g. Coercion) in conversations.   But in general, if Bioware decided that my Hawke gets depressed by his mother's death, I accept that that is the story that Bioware is telling.

TL;DR

If I was Hawke, I would have taken the money from the Deep Roads and gone back to Ferelden, and lived a good live under King Alistair in a place where Mages are accepted, but I'm NOT Hawke, I follow his story and decide how he approaches situations and the intricacies of his life, whether he is good or evil etc.., but he isn't my creation. 

[Pygmali0n]

BobSmith101 wrote...

I recall Diablo having some realy nice cinematics. And not a great deal of talking to people other than to buy/sell or get quests.

That'd be why I said 'Isometric Diablo 3' , highlighting the tactical view many people want back - and that old doesn't mean bad, or need to be changed. But good or bad, at least BW won't cut down on conversations, I think.

(Decided not to make a meal out of an allusion between Diablo 3 cinematics/disappointing game and DA2).

Modifié par Pygmali0n, 13 juillet 2012 - 03:59 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

AmstradHero wrote...

This all implies that you as a character and/or roleplayer have no empathy or understanding of the NPCs with which you are interacting.

Neither do you.  What you call empathy is just you projecting your own emotions onto others and misidentifying that as you perceiving their emotions.  People who are relevantly different from you in how they experience or express emotions - and I do tend to use either psychopaths or the autistic as examples of this - break the system, thus demonstrating that it isn't doing what you think it is doing.

As I stated before, this would be strongly indicative of someone with asperger's or autism.

Again with the internet diagnosis.  I hope you're not a doctor, because this would be hugely unprofessional.

This results in the character lacking the necessary social skill or understanding to communicate in parameters that would be considered normal by the majority of society.

First fo all, you've just made an implicit argumentum ad popularum - that interacting in a particular way is better simply because more people do it.  Second, the method of "communication" (which I put in quotes because I'm not at all confident communication even exists) being described as the majority approach here cannot work without you people reading each other's minds, which you can't do.

Since roleplaying is predicated on interactions with other people...

I deny that this is the case.  Your conditional is meaningless if you don't justify the precedent.

...then any catering for this niche market would be a confluence of fortune rather than any attempt to cater for this approach...

No argument there.  But the fact remains, BioWare did a terrific job (I would argue the best ever) at catering to this exact playstyle, and then they threw it away overnight.  They don't even appear to have known what they'd done.

NPC reactions are predictable because they display particular character traits that informs the player how they will react to the player's actions and dialogue. e.g. being snarky or acting illegally will almost always earn the ire of Aveline. You can track exactly the same issues back to BG and BG2, where characters voice their disapproval if the character is too good/evil and does(n't) perform certain actions. These characters are written such that the player is given indications of their preferences and attitudes, meaning they can consider those when interacting with the character. Writers give NPCs a personality and then display it with in-game information. It is this characterisation that makes them memorable for players, because they have a consistent personality with which the player can empathise or admire (or love to hate). That's what writers do.

In tghe broad sense, I would agree.  We can, over time, learn that Aveline would oppose law-breaking, for example.  I fully expect NPCs to react to the things Hawke does, and to some degree those reactions are predictable (though not always, which is good - predictability would be boring).  I'm claiming that you cannot reasonable expect to know specifically how or why a person (or NPC) will react to nuanced details like tone, or even that the reaction you're seeing is a reaction to any particular stimulus.

Sometimes in conversations I'll laugh, not because the other person said something funny, but because my mind wandered and I remembered something funny from some other occasion.  Is that predictable?  Of course not.  So if an NPC reacts in a way that doesn't precisely match what you expected, why do you assume there's something wrong with the way the line was delivered, or with the other character?

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 13 juillet 2012 - 04:20 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Cimeas wrote...

If I was Hawke, I would have taken the money from the Deep Roads and gone back to Ferelden, and lived a good live under King Alistair in a place where Mages are accepted, but I'm NOT Hawke, I follow his story and decide how he approaches situations and the intricacies of his life, whether he is good or evil etc.., but he isn't my creation. 

That's part of the problem.

[Maclimes]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Cimeas wrote...

If I was Hawke, I would have taken the money from the Deep Roads and gone back to Ferelden, and lived a good live under King Alistair in a place where Mages are accepted, but I'm NOT Hawke, I follow his story and decide how he approaches situations and the intricacies of his life, whether he is good or evil etc.., but he isn't my creation. 

That's part of the problem.

So what would have been your solution? Include an option at the end of the Deep Roads to say, "Well, going back to be a farmer like I always dreamed." GAME OVER.

What if I wanted to visit Orlais instead? Or Tevinter? Or spend my time researching ways to use lyrium in cupcakes? You can't possibly anticipate every single thing that people want to do. If you want that level of freedom, that's for pen-and-paper. Video games NEED some level of rail-roading.

[AkiKishi]

Cimeas wrote...
TL;DR

If I was Hawke, I would have taken the money from the Deep Roads and gone back to Ferelden, and lived a good live under King Alistair in a place where Mages are accepted, but I'm NOT Hawke, I follow his story and decide how he approaches situations and the intricacies of his life, whether he is good or evil etc.., but he isn't my creation. 

Quite so and if Bioware had been upfront and used that like CDPR did half of these complaints would never have cropped up.

However Bioware sold people on the idea that Hawke was their character.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The solution is to let the player decide what Hawke does, rather than having the game tell the player what Hawke does. Even if only a small range of options are modelled without the game (so you can't actually go back to Kirkwall), the game needs to let the player be the one who chooses what Hawke does.

The analogy I've used before is the difference between the passengers on a bus and the bus driver. They all go the same place, and neither gets to deviate from the assigned bus route, but the driver is in control. The player should be like the driver, not the passenger.

[Maclimes]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The solution is to let the player decide what Hawke does, rather than having the game tell the player what Hawke does. Even if only a small range of options are modelled without the game (so you can't actually go back to Kirkwall), the game needs to let the player be the one who chooses what Hawke does.

The analogy I've used before is the difference between the passengers on a bus and the bus driver. They all go the same place, and neither gets to deviate from the assigned bus route, but the driver is in control. The player should be like the driver, not the passenger.

That doesn't even make sense. If the driver is forced to follow the route exactly, he has no control, only the illusion of control. If he goes off that route, then it's the equivalent of Hawke's "I'll go be a farmer" example. It's just a Game Over screen.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Maclimes wrote...

That doesn't even make sense. If the driver is forced to follow the route exactly, he has no control, only the illusion of control.

Sure he does.  The bus goes because he presses a pedal.  That he's required to press it doesn't change the fact that he's the one doing it.