68 réponses à ce sujet

[Darpaek]

VanDraegon wrote...

I guess the OP would prefer it if the major plot lines resolved themselves while the pc was off on a side quest? The Archdemon attacks and the pc is running errands for the Crows? Sorry, missed it....

Yeah, actually... that would be pretty amazing.  My main complaint with BG2 would be that something nasty should happen to Imoen if you raise your money beyond a certain point before rescuing her (say 150k when you're supposed to be shooting for 20k to free her).

I wouldn't want to nerf the whole story, but if earning the "sidetracked" achievement actually cost me something in game that would pretty leet.

[Sethronu]

You know, a lot of people don't WANT to be playing the game under a deadline; there's plenty of players who actually like being able to do whatever quests they run into without having to worry about timelimits set for their quest or whatever. I'd go as far as to say that this kind of players is in the vast majority, really.



If doing a random helper quest before going out to fight the Blight bothers you so much and truly ruins the feeling of immersion for you... why aren't you skipping that quest in favour of doing the 'right' thing, anyway? You have to understand in a game like this there's never pleasing everyone; and the more options the game presents, the better for everyone.



As for NPCs standing in same spots... I don't know, like another poster above said, I was too busy having fun in the game to stop and look at things like that. It's a lot of work to create a truly 'believable' behavioural pattern for just one NPC, nevermind a dozen town and city locations, and then perhaps you'd like to see Darkspawn cooking, mating, and playing Monopoly while waiting for you to come around. Don't get me wrong, it would be great to see a game where every single creature appears to lead a meaningful existence - but it simply isn't realistic to expect something like that, besides, it would lend very little to the actual gameplay and storytelling.



You don't see books detailing every character near the protagonist, likewise games don't need to do so to tell a great story.

[SheffSteel]

I'm pretty sure that the last game I played with a time limit was Prince of Persia.

[Recidiva]

Darpaek wrote...

Stupid, pointy-headed, snooty RPGers...

Stop knocking other genres! Immersion is not exclusive to the RPG! As a long time FPSer AND a long time RPGer, immersion is important to other genres, too! It's just a little different for FPS (more akin to motion sickness... =P)

WHY....can't...I...tape...a...FLASHLIGHT...to this...THING....AAAAUGH!

[blazin130791]

Dammit man you are right. Those kids shouldn't be running in a circle, they should be standing in a circle, around a squirrel, saying "Let's poke it with a stick!". Good times.

icewind dale?

[REH1967]

I played Betrayal at Krondor and it was quite immersive, I was awed by the graphics at the time as well as engrossed in the marvelous storytelling. Most shops would close up at night time, food was a requirement for your character and party because without it you would grow weak with hunger and eventually die.



Funny thing is, most gamers wouldn't find the game "immersive" today if they were to play it. For me, at the time, it was incredibly so.

[LynxAQ]

I agree with the time thing having no meaning. Also not just that, there is no night / day.. which I found to be quite bland and huge step back in RPG developement, especially when you consider there was night and day in every town in Baldur's Gate which is an ancient game. Also different things happened in BG night and day. For example the blacksmith in Beregost would go home at night etc. So if they could do these time related things in a game old like BG, why not in the games of today?

There is one reason - the developers actually cared and were dedicated to their projects / games. Today, developers are lazy and sloppy and care nothing about the game and just about the $$$$.

There are reasons why games like BG are considered absolute classics, and best released but games like DA:O etc (tho good in their own right) will never live up to BG etc.

Its the little things that people remember and the detail, not the big LotR wannabe battles.

Edit: Also most developers could not afford to have there games not be near as perfect as possible. Gaming was not that mainstream back in the day.

Modifié par LynxAQ, 18 décembre 2009 - 06:08 .

[Mordaedil]

Hm. I actually do agree with your examples, but I think David's real point was missed. But other people have already addressed this, so I'll just say that your specific examples are things I'd indeed rather do without, but if they cost too much to change, just leave as is. I didn't really visit the Denerim market *that* often.

[Duck and Cover]

u could always play Oblivion.



I just can't seem to get into Oblivion, but I suppose I would if the character levelling and combat were at least somewhat fun. The world itself is beautiful.



The thing about Oblivion is they strive so hard for realism. But what I've discovered after trying to play Oblivion again is realism does not equal immersion. Voice acting in this game makes it far more immersive than Oblivion could ever hope to be. The voice acting in Oblivion was atrocious.

[Hound of Culain]

Having a day/night cycle wouldn't make sense with the fast travel system. If the party has just spent a week travelling from Redcliffe to Denerim, and they get there in the evening, they won't be in such a rush that they'll go into the city immediately; they'll camp until morning. The only time a day/night cycle would make sense is if you spend ~ 7+ hours without fast travelling, and how often does that happen?



I would like to see some signs of seasonal changes though. Even if they just did a simple weather switch through rainy and green, sunny, foggy and brown and snowy everytime you complete a storyline quest, it would make the passage of time a bit more tangible and real.

[Enkara the Red]

I want fewer merchants who have a constant exclamation point over their head unless I give them seven dollars.

[v.lokai]

Enkara the Red wrote...

I want fewer merchants who have a constant exclamation point over their head unless I give them seven dollars.

I think in general floating quest markers should be on a toggle of some sort. With the tab key or a check box in game options either way would probably appease everyone.

To be fair I don't notice most of the static lifelessness of the game world till my 2nd or nth playthrough. The first go around you typically don't notice this stuff. I love this game and the "I want more syndrome" of course creeps in but I acknowledge that they had to create this game with some constraints.

The world could be more random and animated but there probably is no end to the amount of time and effort you can put into a simple small area like the market to make it fresh upon every visit. Perhaps they can develop routines for npc's which can carry over from game to game until finally in Dragon Age part XXI we have a vibrant world.

In the end though I would honestly prefer more interaction from the main players in the game like companions and main plot people than the nameless scamps running around towns. Not sure if it is a matter of one over the other but if it is then I choose the more meaningful characters to have the greater development.

[Magic Zarim]

Darpaek wrote...

Stupid, pointy-headed, snooty RPGers...

Stop knocking other genres! Immersion is not exclusive to the RPG! As a long time FPSer AND a long time RPGer, immersion is important to other genres, too! It's just a little different for FPS (more akin to motion sickness... =P)

Couldn't agree more.. the HalfLife series being the outstanding example of story telling and immersion brought to you in an FPS game =)

[Adria Teksuni]

*shrug*



I consider myself to be pretty obsessive about immersion, and there was only one place where it was really broken for me.

[Magic Zarim]

LdyShayna wrote...

Damar Stiehl wrote...

Now, I remember a member of the dev team going bananas over people using the term "immersion" (though I don't remember your name, your outburst would've done Derek Smart proud, son. Those players, they need to know their role and their place, know what I'm sayin'?). That said, just because one dislikes the color of the sky, it doesn't mean that it is no longer blue.

Perhaps you could look back and re-read it, then.  He wasn't "bananas" about it because it is unimportant.  He objected to it constantly being used to justify EVERYTHING because immersion, like fun, is too subjective to be universally applied as justification.

Immersion is quite measurable, more so than fun. Better said, the level of immersion is directly lineair to the number of logical falacies encountered and these can be clearly pointed out. A number of examples have been given in this thread. NPCs standing still like a statue. Other NPCs performing such a small script being looped (in a circle running children) that it's easily recognized to be robotic. I'll add some of mine: Seeing a bird hop on the floor, but in such slowmotion that it defies the natural feel of gravity. It does not respond to the PC in any way, it didn't fly off upon closing in, or alter its path.

The better the visual environment simulates what we experience as 'normal' and 'logic', the easier it is to immerse.

The Witcher did just that: Gooze NPC packs would fly off upon the player closing in. Ambient animals had quite large patterns, making their behaviour seem unique untill you'd carefully study their path. NPCs had complex schedules and actually seemed to have a mind of their own. NPCs would begin to talk to you if you'd approach them and so much more.

Integration of night/day cycles and time increases immersion even more. These are also tangible environmental effects we as humans are used to. Simulation of time/space is what I'm talking about.

In my opinion, TW definitely set the bar for any game to come when it comes to immersion.

[Statisfaction]

Denerim market was the biggest immersion buzz-kill ever, especially how often you go back there. I know that a big open (mostly dead..) area with zones into stores is the way to do it, but honestly the market was so lackluster that Bioware could have just used a menu-driven city.

[FalloutBoy]

I don't want to have to waste time waiting for the shopkeeper to open his store. I don't want to have to go through a bunch of load screens while I search every house in the city to find the one place I need to go. I don't need a bunch of nameless NPC's wandering around pretending to be alive. If I wanted a simulation, I would play The Sims.

[Magic Zarim]

Statisfaction wrote...

Denerim market was the biggest immersion buzz-kill ever, especially how often you go back there. I know that a big open (mostly dead..) area with zones into stores is the way to do it, but honestly the market was so lackluster that Bioware could have just used a menu-driven city.

To offer another view in defense of DA though, Orzammar contains exponentially more activity than Denerim ever does. More randomly patrolling NPCs, more chatter and overall had a busy feel. I'm talking about the Orzammar main areas, the Diamond distrtrict and (forgot the name) the section where the inn was, the Tapster I think it was. The inn inside radiated a cheery busy feel.

I am not sure, but I feel like Orzammar / Dwarf origins have been built during the earlier stages of DA development; at a time where there was a much less noticable time contraint (release date still years off) while other areas that have an increasing lack of ambient activity / atmosphere were built much later in the dev process where time constraints became more noticable. I may be completely off, but that's what it feel slike to me.

[Curlain]

Well they could have had night and day cycles as they did with BG, but the question is would this have added much? It did a good job in the Witcher, but there you were often in one area so it had more impact (such as spending your time in Vizma) where as with Dragon Age you are in many areas all over Ferelden (which is why some areas are set at night like the Mages tower, to give you the feeling of crossing vast country, also why the camp is at night). It worked fine in KOTOR as well, so I didn't feel with DA the inclusion of a night/day cycle would have necessarily added anything to the experience worth the investment it would need to implement it convincingly (and unconvincing NPCs life-cycles wouldn't have been a good move). I didn't find anything (apart from maybe superman) being immersion breaking here, if you want to pick away at things you could find lots of things immersion breaking, for instance, the party limit. It still exists when your traveling from one location to another and have a random encounter, so where's the rest of your party there. But it exists for gameplay reasons, and we accept it without finding it really breaking our immersion, and the same with the locations, they work well, there's not a great need for the night/day cycles in DA imo

Modifié par Curlain, 18 décembre 2009 - 08:14 .

[Magic Zarim]

That's right, in another post where I compaired TW to DA, I stated the same basically. In the current incarnation, D/T cycles wouldn't add much to DA because of zone and travel design. For it to have an effect, the player could or would need to spend more time in a given area, which requires the area to be much larger than the current zones in DA.

The more I think of it; DA is pretty much a 3D upgrade from the BG games. Other than being 3D, there isn't much innovation, but more and better of what was there in the 2D games. Better story, more fleshed out companions, more dialogue, more spells/abilities, enhanced by introducing talent trees rather than just getting given spells at given levels. But when looked at it broadly.. yes, it's 'just' a 3D enhanced BG.

In that respect, FPS games have been the drive to full 3D open world large area visuals and these have trickled over into RPGs. The Gothic series, TW, the later FF games. In my opinion, Bioware should follow suit and let go of the 80's 90's style of segmented world design connected by map travel. Remember The Summoner? I loved that game and it was released in an era where 3D power wasn't nearly where it is now. It had large (and even for that time, lively) areas, although they were still map connected. But I'd venture to say the areas did a better job at delivering a sense of time/space than DA's areas do.

Edit: To give an example, why are even local areas segmented? Why isn't Denerim one big map that would deliver the sense of a big, bustling city, instead of what it is now - very small chops of area connected through a map. Being in Denerim could have made the player feel like he's strolling about in the big, busy human capitol. But, it doesn't. I'm not saying it should take the player 10 minutes to reach the other end of the town, but at least everything that is / has to be done in Denerim could be accessible in the same map with minor travel imposed on the player. (In TW it took about 2 - 4 minutes to fully cross a map).

Modifié par Magic Zarim, 18 décembre 2009 - 09:08 .

[Ariella]

REH1967 wrote...

I played Betrayal at Krondor and it was quite immersive, I was awed by the graphics at the time as well as engrossed in the marvelous storytelling. Most shops would close up at night time, food was a requirement for your character and party because without it you would grow weak with hunger and eventually die.

Funny thing is, most gamers wouldn't find the game "immersive" today if they were to play it. For me, at the time, it was incredibly so.

Betrayal at Krondor took immersion to the level of insanity. Food would rot and you could poison yourself if you didn't have fresh... It made me insane. I was so thankful they got rid of it in Return to Krondor.

I've come to hate time schedules in games. I'll give you an example: Everquest 2. There is a gate that is only open during the day and not at night, so get stuck behind that gate and half the zone is barred to you for the 20 or so minutes of night there is. And there is no way around it, which makes it annoying.

I don't remember BG 1 or 2 having a schedule... In fact, BG2 has the same "problem" as Dragon Age in that you've got a time limit (save Imoen) yet you're running around doing all these side quests as you try and get the money to go save her. I think I've run up 3 digit day counts in BG2 before I even GOT to Imoen.

And, if you think about it, there is no "natural" day/night cycle in DA in the first place. You always arrive in certain places during the day, the camp is always a night-time setting... And it hasn't bothered me yet, and I've lost count of my play throughs.

Don't get me wrong: painting the corners is very nice, but sometimes the fun isn't in the details as much as it is in just playing the game.

[Korva]

entropysoda wrote...

Ultima started "NPC schedules" (with i think Ultima 5 or 6) where they took lunch, went to sleep, went to work, etc. which I thought was the COOLEST thing back in the day.

Since then, it seems game developers thought that was a horrible idea, since no game since has done it, that I know of. Even Ultima got rid if it in later games in that series. I seem to recall the designer saying something like: when a player goes to a vendor, he wants to sell/buy right away, not wait for the shopkeeper to get back from lunch!

While that logic is ok, I think some simulation aspects can deepen the immersion and I for one find it fun. Things like "baking bread" (interacting with in-game objects other than killing things and taking their stuff) is another cool sim idea in a RPG. Bring these things back!

Yes, wholehearted agreement. The old Ultimas (5-7) are still high among the best games ever in my book partly because of this: they actually tried to create a world. Games like Dragon Age take place on a tiny theater stage instead, with cardboard props and bored silent extras. Now I do love KotOR, DA and JE regardless -- but I do miss those old features. Day/night cycle, NPC schedules, interaction with the environment in more ways than just the simplistic "open door", "loot corpse" and "disarm trap". Even the requirement to eat and rest regularly, and items wearing down with use can be fun features.

[Krigwin]

deathwing200 wrote...
Disagree. NPC's moving around or when they're not available at certain times, makes things really annoying and tedious. I am glad Bioware chose not to go down that route.

People not being available when I needed them, was one of the reasons Witcher is no longer on my hard drive.

I really don't understand this level of impatience. Go to a fire, select number of hours to meditate, said NPC is now exactly where it's supposed to be and you had to wait maybe 2 minutes. Man, that was tough, I can see why you'd have to uninstall the game over that nonsense.

But, short of making the game extremely linear like the Witcher, I really don't see any real ways to impose time limits, time/day cycles, proper time passage systems, NPC schedules, etc. I would personally argue that making a game linear like the Witcher is not a bad thing (you're being told a story, after all, you can get your freerange exploration and adventuring in any sandbox game), but that's a matter of preference and I know many people love the Bioware non-ordered main quest formula to death.

It really isn't even close to a fair comparison though, the Witcher was so organic and atmospheric that no other game even comes close. Still, it's kind of a shame that DA:O even falls behind BG2 (which came out 9 years ago by the same company, for crying out loud).

[Auraad]

Yeah well ... it's a bad game with excellent NPCs - we all know that, don't we?