295 réponses à ce sujet

[FedericoV]

David Gaider wrote...

If there are further DA games we could indeed go the route of having a canonical story, moving forward. We did that between BG1 and BG2, for instance. We can also go the route of carrying forward player choices, as well, though the challenges have been pointed out by others -- having choices being recognized and having those choices result in entirely different storylines, after all. There also would have to be a "default" even there unless a save game is required (which is unlikely), although that's not really canonical unless it applies to everyone.

Either way, I'm sure there will be some people upset because they would have liked some other way better -- there were some people upset that BG2 didn't carry over the party you had from BG1, for instance, but most of them got over it. There are advantages to either method, after all, and in the end the goal is to tell a good story.

For what is worth, I hope that you will choose the canon ending route if DA2 come true (I really hope so).

I think that it will help you to tell a better story. And I think that recognizing all the different choices in a meaningfull manner in the next game would "waste" a lot of resources that could be used to have more "new" material. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Moreover, I think that the the story of "The Warden" is finished so it would be better to have a completely different charachter.

Having said that, people will complain no matter what you do, so I'm sure that you won't care and choose the best direction to tell a compelling and great story like the DAO's one.

[philippe willaume]

David Gaider wrote...

If there are further DA games we could indeed go the route of having a canonical story, moving forward. We did that between BG1 and BG2, for instance. We can also go the route of carrying forward player choices, as well, though the challenges have been pointed out by others -- having choices being recognized and having those choices result in entirely different storylines, after all. There also would have to be a "default" even there unless a save game is required (which is unlikely), although that's not really canonical unless it applies to everyone.

Either way, I'm sure there will be some people upset because they would have liked some other way better -- there were some people upset that BG2 didn't carry over the party you had from BG1, for instance, but most of them got over it. There are advantages to either method, after all, and in the end the goal is to tell a good story.

Hello
As far as the canon ending, well is it not a bit like medieval fencing?
I teach medieval fencing and In Fiore or Vadi you have a multitude of post and guarda and in the Lichtauanuer tradition you just have 5 basically hand high in front, high behind and the same for when you hands are low and so to fence you just need to know how to break those 5 position.
The point is fiore works just as well as lichtanauer and you end up doing pretty much the same thing.
The difference is really on how they look at and explained the fight.
 
I do not think brand new and old approach are antiniomic. I though you did a good job of keeping think localised. so if DA:2 change location most of the result of the epilogue becomes irrelevant anyway.
We can reduce the result to did the main PC live or die and if it is important for the new plot and your relationship with Morrigan.
So really old charaters hookup just becomes one of the possible origin stories.
 
It is always difficult to bring companions across, the graphic technology will probably have changed, the voices will not be the same and they will need new dialogs. At the end of the day it is a much work as creating something new.
 
As well the band split up.  So we really have to worry about the romance partner and eventually the dog but barking is barking so the dialog option are not a mammoth task.
The DLC concept can be used to bring new and old char in the party may be with a conjunction of a char creator in a pre-release, where the user base could model the non included old char (and may be new char).
So you could have 3-4 old and 3-4 new standards and a DLC for each old and some more  new.

phil 

[EricHVela]

The Canon ending is that:
Alistair and Anora rule though Loghain is executed. Alistair is called to the Warden headquarters. Morrigan runs off with a bun in the oven and is seen heading west. Player as a Human and former Noble runs the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. The mage tower was purged by Annulment. Bhelen is king, but Branka controls the Anvil. Several Thaigs were recovered. City elves' lives improve, but their status does not. Dalish continue to clash with humans around Ostagar but nothing major. Isolde sacrificed herself for her son. Jowan was executed. A deal was made in the Fade and Connor has grown quiet. Redcliffe slowly declines. Darkspawn have roaming raids around Ferelden. The Warden helped K defeat the competition. The Blackstone Irregulars' internal dispute was unresolved. Shale has gone with Wynne to Tevinter. Oghren and Felsi live in Denerim, together. Zevran was killed during his assassination attempt on the Warden. Leliana returned to Orlais. Sten returned to Par Vollen. Dog went with the PC.

Before the next game:
Alistair gets killed on the way to or from Weisshaupt. Anora rules alone, but a scandal erupts when she turns up pregnant. She names no father though Alistair's timing disqualifies him. No Nobles step forward. Her rule and child are contested from her commoner status and no noble claim for her infidelity. Redcliffe is deserted. Eamon has passed on. Connor turned apostate from the new Circle and is still at large. The Irregulars are named outlaws due to increasing incidents of violence. K's activities are unknown, but it is assumed they continue by the people of Denerim. Werewolf incidents increase around Ostagar. Wynne never makes it to Tevinter. Shale still as a golem is captured while traveling on her own. Where she is now is unknown. Oghren and Felsi divorce, marry, divorce, marry, divorce, and marry again. No kids yet. Leliana meets her death at the end of an assassin's arrow (though we already know how unlikely that is). The former PC continues to run the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. Dog has passed on. Qunari frigates are spotted sailing south past Rivain. Darkspawn attacks are now rare on the surface. Bhelen continues to rule Orzammar, but has taken no more Thaigs. His defenses of their current Thaigs wane without the support of Branka and the golems. Morrigan is nowhere to be found... so far.

The next game takes place in both Orlais and Ferelden with brand new origins.


I'm just making that all up... or not?

Modifié par ReggarBlane, 16 décembre 2009 - 07:33 .

[Dunhart]

You'd better be, mage-hater.

[Lotion Soronarr]

You can allways set DA:O in a completely other part of Thedas and the events on DA:O are not mentioned much, or in any detail.



New character, new everything.

[EricHVela]

Actually, I've always saved the Circle with one exception for the achievement. In that instance, I reloaded and saved the Circle. With that, I've always saved Isolde and Connor.

[Mikka-chan]

It's weird. I'm okay with the option of Alistair ending up on the throne and Morrigan ending up pregnant, even though I still haven't gotten the second achievement (next playthrough!) and only in one of my games did Alistair end up on the throne. I'm cool with Loghain dying, them assuming that you helped the Mages or helped the Templers, and them making Harrowmont the King with the Anvil for the most overly dramatic and sucktastic way of dwarf-living. I'm okay with there being elves or werewolves or elves and humans who were once werewolves, or with whatever ending the game likes the most when it comes to your companions.

But it would make me somewhat sad if the game plugged in who the Warden was. I'd rather the game go the route of Revan (assuming that your character from this game doesnt' carry over, which I think likely considering the sacrifice ending) in KOTOR2 (which I know was produced by Obsidian, but bear with me). The whole 'Yep, there was someone awesome who totally saved the world, but now they're gone, and that's that'. Whether it was a rogue dwarven princess or the male human noble or a dalish elf or a mage or whatever, I'd like to be able to imagine that it was 'my' character, and thus have it be left open for anyone to slot in.

[Korva]

Thief-of-Hearts wrote...

Well it's supposed to be a somewhat open ended game so I don't think they would funnel the end of DAO into one "cannon". That would ****** off and ostracise so many people. The game is supposed to be 'our story', or give it that illusion so to that "this is cannon" would be giving the finger to everyone who didn't fit the OP descritpion. Not to mention a being a complete contradiction.

Amen. "Good story" and "retconning player choice out of existence" simply do not go together in my book. If there must be a singular "canon" for the sequel, what would the point be in even pretending there is any choice at all in this game? It would ****** me off beyond words and certainly make me kiss the franchise goodbye -- especially since what is canon for me is extremely unlike to mesh with the official canon. (My "canon" is female human noble warrior, romanced Leliana, crowned Alistair, killed Loghain, kicked Morrigan to the curb and gave her life slaying the archdemon.)

@philippe willaume: Actually you can't retcon the sacrifice out of existence and pretend the PC miraculously got better, because when you go with that ending it says quite clearly that the PC's remains get a place of honor in a special tomb in Weisshaupt with the other Wardens who made that sacrifice. So you're definitely dead and buried, and in fact long dead when you are buried since it's a slow, long journey. Anything rising from that tomb would be a gruesome zombie.

[LdyShayna]

David Gaider wrote...

If there are further DA games we could indeed go the route of having a canonical story, moving forward. We did that between BG1 and BG2, for instance.

If you guys decided to do this, and further decided that the PC was male and deeply in love with Morrigan, I would have to do something terrible to you and the whole writing and design teams.  I mean, I'm sure you guys will make whatever decision you feel like, but I'm keen on people making informed decisions.

[Greenphrog]

The Canon ending is the Baby!



Echantment!

[FedericoV]

Korva wrote...

Thief-of-Hearts wrote...

Well it's supposed to be a somewhat open ended game so I don't think they would funnel the end of DAO into one "cannon". That would ****** off and ostracise so many people. The game is supposed to be 'our story', or give it that illusion so to that "this is cannon" would be giving the finger to everyone who didn't fit the OP descritpion. Not to mention a being a complete contradiction.

Amen. "Good story" and "retconning player choice out of existence" simply do not go together in my book. If there must be a singular "canon" for the sequel, what would the point be in even pretending there is any choice at all in this game?

Maybe the point is that it was fun to roleplay them while playing DA:O but I could be mistaken of course.

[Korva]

FedericoV wrote...

Maybe the point is that it was fun to roleplay them while playing DA:O but I could be mistaken of course.

It was fun, yes. But it leaves an extremely bitter taste in the mouth when you're told that what you enjoyed so much has never happened. It's like they would say, "You played the game wrong, this is what really happened." Also, it breaks continuity in a bad way if your choices don't happen to be the "right" ones. For a female player, that is almost guaranteed to happen.

Personally I would much rather see any sequel take place a good geographical and/or chronological distance removed from the first, with only side references to the events of the first game, determined by either a savegame-import or a Q&A along the lines of "Did you hear the rumors of what happened in Ferelden?"). There's more to Thedas than just Ferelden, though the rebuilding of a broken and ravaged nation surrounded by neighbours of questionable intent could be interesting -- if it wasn't for the 101 variables from the first game that could significantly change things and make a direct sequel hard to pull off in a satisfying way.

[RampantBeaver]

I would be surprised if they did a canon ending. I would imagine something along the lines of ME2.

Modifié par RampantBeaver, 16 décembre 2009 - 08:39 .

[David Gaider]

Korva wrote...
Amen. "Good story" and "retconning player choice out of existence" simply do not go together in my book. If there must be a singular "canon" for the sequel, what would the point be in even pretending there is any choice at all in this game? 

Doesn't that presume that the player is using the same character? There seems to be a lot of presumption that we would do this, but that's by no means guaranteed (although I'm not suggesting it won't happen, before anyone completely loses their mind). Even so, the fact that it's "your story" doesn't really have to mean that it's "your story" for anything other than the one story.

Some people can make sweeping declarations about what we should or should not do in the future, and that's really up to them, but I'd be careful about doing so -- no matter what we do it will be in the interests of telling a better story. Suggesting that you won't play a future story simply because you enjoyed THIS story so much, no matter how AWESOME a future story might be seems a bit short-sighted.

[Herr Uhl]

David Gaider wrote...
Some people can make sweeping declarations about what we should or should not do in the future, and that's really up to them, but I'd be careful about doing so -- no matter what we do it will be in the interests of telling a better story. Suggesting that you won't play a future story simply because you enjoyed THIS story so much, no matter how AWESOME a future story might be seems a bit short-sighted.

If it is sufficiently awesome and could not have been made as awesome without it, I'd accept canonization.

But I'd probably play it even if it was a dating sim for nugs.

[The Angry One]

Time4Tiddy wrote...

PC - Human Noble Male, father of Morrigan's child (assuming she was romanced and ended in love with you)
Alistair and Anora joint rulers of Ferelden, Alistair "hardened version"
Loghain executed as a traitor, killed by Alistair in duel

Thoughts?

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

What with the 3 playthroughs I've already completed and the ones I intend to do, I'll openly admit I don't care too much if a follow up is about the 'origins' character or not. Truth be told, I am more preferring the idea of a 'fresh' start, both in location and character. One of the lines I like in one of the epilogue texts is how it says "But that tale is for another time, <insert character name>'s story ended when they plunged the sword into the archdemon." or words to that effect.

I think another reason is because I have a good imagination and have ideas of what any of my characters that did survive went on to do in their 'reality' of the Ferelden timeline.

Would rather see a good story than one that isn't so good because they have had to cater for a lot of the variables that can come from the ending of DAO.

[LdyShayna]

David Gaider wrote...
Doesn't that presume that the player is using the same character?

Hmmm...it depends on how much events in the sequel refer back to the events in the first game.  Wouldn't it?  The mor especific the sequel is about the events of the first game, the more toes you would step on in this regard, i'd say.  Not that you MUST avoid toe stepping, but...

Even so, the fact that it's "your story" doesn't really have to mean that it's "your story" for anything other than the one story.

It's mine.  My precious.

Some people can make sweeping declarations about what we should or should not do in the future, and that's really up to them, but I'd be careful about doing so -- no matter what we do it will be in the interests of telling a better story. Suggesting that you won't play a future story simply because you enjoyed THIS story so much, no matter how AWESOME a future story might be seems a bit short-sighted.

Sooo....should I start stocking up on the fire ants and bikini wax for the "terrible thing" now, or hold off? 

[FedericoV]

Korva wrote...

FedericoV wrote...

Maybe the point is that it was fun to roleplay them while playing DA:O but I could be mistaken of course.

It was fun, yes. But it leaves an extremely bitter taste in the mouth when you're told that what you enjoyed so much has never happened. It's like they would say, "You played the game wrong, this is what really happened." Also, it breaks continuity in a bad way if your choices don't happen to be the "right" ones. For a female player, that is almost guaranteed to happen.

Well, I understand your point about genre. That's an important thing to consider and I would hate to see female players treated unfairly. One of the greatest thing about DA:O is that it's designed for ALL players. So I think that you're right: a "canon" should consider the fact that The Warden could have been a woman. It would not ask too much work to implement that choice in another game.

But at the end, if you play a new charachter, it would only affect Morigain storyline so I do not think that it will have a great effect on the game. Yep, it would be very important if the next game is all about Morrigain child but I doubt that they will build the whole sequel around that theme.

But in general I do not agree with the "choice have never happen" argument. I've allready explained my position in other threads about that topic and I do not like to repeat my self. But for me the point is that choices/consequences are fun while I make them during the game, considering the charachter I'm playing. They differ if I play a Male Human Noble, a Male Dalish Elf or a Female City Elf (yep, for the first time in my life I've played a female charachter ).

I do not care about their effects on the future of the franchise. They do not affect my feelings with the next game. At least, not at the cost of a game that is more about my previous choices/adventures than my next ones.

Modifié par FedericoV, 16 décembre 2009 - 09:08 .

[The Angry One]

I maintain toe-steppage is bad. It just feels irritating to play through a game then have something else tell you what you did never happened. BioWare have never done this I think, only 3rd parties related to the IPs they used to work with (D&D and Star Wars).



Yes I'm still mad over the whole "lol ****** comic book writer makes Revan male because Star Wars is for boys" thing. And I know I'm not the only one.

Hell, then as if to "compromise", they make the Exile a female. Way to miss the point guys, it's got nothing to do with males or females (I only mention the reason given for saying Revan was male because it's utterly stupid), it's about trampling all over gamer's choices!

[CarlSpackler]

David Gaider wrote...

Korva wrote...
Amen. "Good story" and "retconning player choice out of existence" simply do not go together in my book. If there must be a singular "canon" for the sequel, what would the point be in even pretending there is any choice at all in this game? 

Doesn't that presume that the player is using the same character? There seems to be a lot of presumption that we would do this, but that's by no means guaranteed (although I'm not suggesting it won't happen, before anyone completely loses their mind). Even so, the fact that it's "your story" doesn't really have to mean that it's "your story" for anything other than the one story.

Some people can make sweeping declarations about what we should or should not do in the future, and that's really up to them, but I'd be careful about doing so -- no matter what we do it will be in the interests of telling a better story. Suggesting that you won't play a future story simply because you enjoyed THIS story so much, no matter how AWESOME a future story might be seems a bit short-sighted.

Any chance on peeling back the curtain for us a bit?  Obviously not in a way that confirms or denies the existence of future DA games as I'm sure you're not allowed to do that (heh unless of course you're feeling particularly brazen today .)     More in terms of how does the design/discussion of how to approach a sequel take place?  How did it go with BG? Or perhaps you have insight on how the ME teams weigh these thing?  For instance does the team sit down and first of all discuss what kind of story they want to tell and then look at how they want to carry the first game forward?  Do they look at every possible decision and choose which ones they wish to carry over and which to canonize?  Is it an all or nothing?  Do the writers choose first, get all excited then decide perhaps carrying over player decisions won't work when the technical designers take a lunch break at the local bar and stay there for a week?  Just curious is all. 

[Taleroth]

This is why I dislike loose strings in videogames that give choice. Because you either:

A) Never clear up those strings. Either because they never address them or assume they didn't happen.

Clear them up, but ignore the choices that prevented the loose strings.

C) Have to account for multiple variables in followups so that you can determine if the player has any loose strings to clear up.



Or that's how I see it.

[Axterix]

David Gaider wrote...

Some people can make sweeping declarations about what we should or should not do in the future, and that's really up to them, but I'd be careful about doing so -- no matter what we do it will be in the interests of telling a better story. Suggesting that you won't play a future story simply because you enjoyed THIS story so much, no matter how AWESOME a future story might be seems a bit short-sighted.

I'll play it because I enjoyed this one so much. 

But I will say that I prefer to play a new character in the same world over an old one, if the world will have changed.  My character did certain things, behaved in a certain way, and when that behavior gets retconned into something else, that character no longer is who he/she was.

[Popemaster123]

I hope that you find out one of the chars in the origins(fergus/shianni/tamlen/lilly etc) will ahve a child and tell them all about the grey warden who sacrificed themself, leliana will of been romanced and will have a cameo, she helps the new PC out,wynne has a brief cameo,stens gone,dog is gone,zevran is head of crows,brief cameo/quest giver (like ignacio),morrigan is gone (in orlais (ing ame of it is set in orlais) or she helps u out of curiosity),alistair king/anora queen,oghren is a general in the fereldan army has children with human/elf/dwarf names (depends on origin) and player doe missions for king and queen as well as grey wardens but is not a gray warden themself