83 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvanpyxie]

the music and environment does give a suspense

That's the whole point.

Suspense fuels your imagination.

Your imagination then shows you something utterly horrifying that's right behind the door. The closer you get to the door the more horrifying the creature becomes. By the time you've reached the door, you've got the most grotesque, horrific, disturbingly horrible creature in your mind.

It's all about anticipation, and when there's that much anticipation there isn't a single thing that any developer can create that will be as horrifying as the image you've got in your head.

The bad guys will *never* be as terrifying as the things your imagination can show you.

[Ausstig]

Elton John is dead wrote...

In conclusion, Dragon Age 3 BETTER be dark. I want more quests like the All that Remains quests. More quests fighting against horrific demons that can possess people. More darkspawn that resemble the broodmothers but are even worst and I want mature subjects dealt with along with difficult decisions (grey choices such as killing Connor or not) to come back.

Lastly I would like for DA3 to have a realistic artstyle which makes monsters look gruesome and horrifying rather than cute like DA2 made the darkspawn shrieks.

No more of this:
 
 
 

What's wrong with your face?

Also what is that ment to be? 

[Xilizhra]

Also I don't remember this grotesque abominations appearing Dragon Age 2:

Actually, abominations looked exactly alike in both games, you just didn't have closeups of their faces in DA2.

Also, I'm glad you didn't use the Harvester as one of your examples, as I really don't find a large head/tail on legs, with its tongue constantly hanging out, scary so much as kind of comical. Especially because it keeps on running away from you.

[magodesky]

I think Yahtzee summed up my thoughts on the "dark fantasy" label in his review over at Zero Punctuation: "Dragon Age isn't dark fantasy. Nor is it light grey, avacado, or caffeine-free fantasy. It's just straight fantasy classic. It's a straight line Tetris block wiping out four big fat rows of demand for traditional single-player RPGs."

The quest with Hawke's mother in Act 2 of DA2 was the first time I felt like the series actually lived up to the whole "dark fantasy" idea. If they really want it to be dark, they should have a lot more quests like that in DA3. Personally, I enjoy both styles.

[Eternal Phoenix]

Ausstig wrote...

Elton John is dead wrote...

In conclusion, Dragon Age 3 BETTER be dark. I want more quests like the All that Remains quests. More quests fighting against horrific demons that can possess people. More darkspawn that resemble the broodmothers but are even worst and I want mature subjects dealt with along with difficult decisions (grey choices such as killing Connor or not) to come back.

Lastly I would like for DA3 to have a realistic artstyle which makes monsters look gruesome and horrifying rather than cute like DA2 made the darkspawn shrieks.

No more of this:
 
 
 

What's wrong with your face?

Also what is that ment to be? 

My face? You can see me?

Amelia...is that you?

XD

That's a Dragon Age 2 Shriek.

Or as I like to call it...a GOBLIN!

[Spedfrom]

As long as the devs implement an in-game brightness setting, I'm fine with DA3 being darker.

*snicker*

[ananna21]

Too dark I will cease to care about the situation in thedas to the extant the only I wish to have is screw this I'm outta here option along with giving a reason you suck speech to every charecter. I don't think anything can top the darkness of the witcher books. Spoiler where in which the world is doomed to an ice age because a man decided not to have a son with his biological daughter.
Just give certain quests that improve a situation for some as light shines brightest in the dark. Nature of the beast the best part ending a centuries long revenge plot ending when the one who started ending what he started. Along with a less prejudiced leader coming to power who could help the Dalish move forward just felt good. Come 2 it had fall though to show how the dark world is. Hawke might have just ate pies the whole time with super explosion still occurring because the tension was rising and nothing lasts forever. The dark-spawn ogre really does look lame in 2 with its primate chest pounding. Subtle horror is better than jump out scares. Creepy music helps but the circle tower seemed creepy due the steady amount of corruption as one went up the tower or when going the through the deep roads to the broodmother. Mages al turning to abomination made me more care less about them because it made them seem as if they had no self control and were more entitled whiners who would have no answer to "What will you do with your freedom?" as they don't how to farm and who would sell them land. Shame that Wynne is gone she had the most foresight than anyone in dragon age 2. A better dark. Enemies that look more intimidating. Certain outcomes improve with true hard work. Deep characters that feel real. Scary areas being more subtle not jump out closet scares. Most of the faction not consisting of fragile minds one step shy entering the loony bin.

Modifié par ananna21, 13 août 2012 - 03:49 .

[Wulfram]

Sylvanpyxie wrote...

Uhm, to be more serious. Dragon Age 2 was quite depressing as a game, not because it was "dark", but merely because of circumstances being taken out of your control.

Lack of control is necessary to be truly dark.  DA:O wasn't really a particularly dark game, outside of the Origin stories, because ultimately the player got to be the big damn hero and fix virtually everything.

While DA2 was to me notably dark because the player couldn't fix anyhing.

I preferred DA:O, though I wouldn't mind a bit of a balance - Warden could be a bit too much of a Mary Sue sometimes.

[Celtic man51]

DAO was dark, but it always had comic relief to lighten it up. I hope DA3 is dark but not TOO dark.

[wsandista]

Blacker than the Blackest Black.

[Dessalines]

I think Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II were both dark. I think it what you see as dark. I always felt the real darkness is best represent by what "jhumans" do to one another, then ancient evils do to one another. Couslands were murdered, your dwarf brother betrayed you, and your elf friend was raped, and that was only a few things that happened in Origins. In Dragon Age II, your mother is a victim of serial killer, a templar was tranquiling mages to use as sex dolls, mages doing immoral to protect themselves from abuse , corruption and murder masked under the guise of protecting a country's belief.
If you don't see the "horror" elements as what makes the game dark, then both games are darks.

[tsukasabuddha]

For me the problem is "grimdarkness" where they just toss in horrible things to be dark. Here's some rape! Here's the aforementioned broodmother thing! Here is a guy chopping up women!

The problem is that I just get numb. They give me no reason to care for these random pawns.

The best horrors I've read use established, sympathetic characters that you actually feel like saving.

[Iakus]

I don't mind a certain degree of darkness. It makes the light at the end shine all the brighter.

I'm a fan of "Earn your Happy Ending" but that presupposes there's a happy ending to earn. Not a forced sacrifice, an arbitrary tragedy "because a price must be paid" and so on.

[EricHVela]

Black as night. Black as pitch. Black than the foulest witch.

In does need to be significantly bleak, but as others mentioned, there needs to be hope.

However, the situation should be the most dire in the final game of the franchise (and the next Dragon Age is not supposed to be the final one).

I think the next one should be dark as some of the most fierce wars have been. Ruined cities and towns, refugees, death everywhere. Like Ferelden was becoming during the (very brief) last Blight.but actually reach a state of devastation not up to but not too far from the ruination of Kirkwall. (Champion? Rrrrriiiight.)

[Dagr88]

I like the amount of darkness in DA:O in every aspect. Compared to it DA2 had problems with:

Graphics: Everyone and everything was... greyishly-shiny. That somewhat diminish the atmosphere of the game which is based on demons/darkspawn/blood magic/war/constant killing and attempts of the protagonist to somehow make that world a better place or to help paint it red.

Props: Since most game is placed in the city unfortunately it has small quota on darkspawn gore and humanoid skeletons/dead bodies (Would like to scold Aveline for that). As was already mentioned, it's not obligatorily to have it in game to create dark atmosphere, but never the less... Yes, there are some dirt and hungry beggars on the street but that was added just to make them less empty.

Contrast and layers of decisions: "Protect mages so to save possessed child OR bleed his mother and then go on a quest to get pinch of ashes to heal an Arl but along the way recruit cult of mad dragon worshipers by corrupting one of the most sacred Chantry artifacts." More layers means bigger contrast.
In DA2 the "layers" part is weak thus game fells more neutral.

To sum it up... return to DA:O for me is a win.

Modifié par Dagr88, 17 août 2012 - 04:21 .

[Gibb_Shepard]

I want it to be so dark that even when i slide the brightness bar all the way up, i still can't see ****.

[LucidlyInsane]

Sorry 'bout the wall of text; just wanted to try and reason this one out:

ETA: BSN hates HTML,  apparently.

I'd actually quite like it to be less dark than DAII. I like a little grit, and balanced brewing issues under the surface - complex, a little more like life, rather than sunshine and rainbows - but we've already had:

• DA:O - which was dark as hell, frankly: broodmothers, betrayal and backstabbing everywhere, "families" both metaphorical and not wiped out, constant oppression... it wasn't exactly sunny. And yet, with the way you eventually did kill the archdemon and the way he romances are written, I interpreted at least part of its appeal in being that you can beat the odds, improve the world a little. There's humour and some quite heartwarming stuff in there, too, what with some of the quests and dialogue. One of its main themes is, overwhelmingly, hope, light in the darkness.This is explicitly said a couple of times in both DA:O and DAII.

• The imperfect hopelessness of DAII, where you're surviving in a city always on the edge of madness and it's eventually shown that Hawke can't always beat the odds, can't always change the world positively, went the other way; it lost that balance, losing a lot of its humour and warmth. Angst - always a BioWare staple, but even so - was heaped on unnecessarily, losing its impact because 80% of the time, we were seeing unchanging, constant unrest and misery. Characters felt rushed in an effort to show of all of its "conflict" and "mature, huge, hopeless drama". It's like the teenager's idea that angsty and grim must mean adult. It lost the warmth that made me love and sympathise with much of DA:O, the background tension that was shown, not told, dark enough just as background context or hints.

tl;dr - I'd like them to take it back to DA:O - or even slightly lighter "grimdark levels" - and balance the grit with maturity and warmth. DAII showed few redeeming, sympathetic features of Kirkwall, and, while that direction shouldn't be abandoned completely, there should be more focus on realistic character development, not just angst.

Modifié par LucidlyInsane, 17 août 2012 - 04:58 .

[King Cousland]

After five playthroughs, I still don't find DA II to be a dark game at all. I certainly saw moments that were clearly intended to be dark, but (for me at least) this was cancelled out either by the art style (which I found completely inappropriate for what is intended as a dark setting, though I'm aware many liked it) or the writing. The art style speaks for itself, so I'll address the writing: One of my main problems with how DA II was written was that it struggled to define what exactly it wanted to be and when. Many a time a scene that was intended as emotional, gritty or dark didn't appear that way because it seemed as though the writers had panicked and thought they needed to throw in some humour or usher the plot along so the game didn't get too low. In short, it seemed to follow much more of a "Keep em' laughing" approach which just didn't work for me. It almost felt as if - and this isn't me being flippant - Stephen King was writing for Scooby Doo. 

Dragon Age is intended as a dark fantasy, and DA:O did it well. It was depressing and bitter when it needed to be, but this was balanced out in other moments with humour, when appropriate (I can't stress that enough). There is no need to cut down on the humour, but it should only be done when appropriate, not, for example, when a man is cradling his murdered son's corpse.

So, yes, I'd like DA III to be darker, but it can only be done properly if it's balanced well and appropriate to a situation.

EDIT: In regard to the people using All That Remains as an example of how DA II was dark, I actually found it to be one the weaker parts of the game. It perfectly shows what I was referring to above, where a scene which is intended to be dark falls flat on it's face because of (in this case) the cliched and predictable nature of the plot. Not to mention that the cartoon-like, overly bright, clean and smooth art style really took the "dark" edge off for me. 

Modifié par King Cousland, 17 août 2012 - 05:05 .

[thats1evildude]

Give me blood, blood
Gallons of the stuff
Give me all that I can drink and it will never be enough
Give me blood, blood, bloooooooood
Grab a glass because there's going to be a flood.

Modifié par thats1evildude, 17 août 2012 - 05:04 .

[LucidlyInsane]

@King Cousland: You may be right there. For all that people talked about hating the "brown" of DA:O, I liked the more subtle colour palette.

DA2 didn't quite feel like "proper" Dragon Age, and maybe it was designed not to. It felt very confused in a lot of places - you're fighting against a philosophy, but boss battles! Mages are oppressed, but widely shown to betray you! I liked the shades of moral grey, but it was so self-inconsistent and confused in a lot of niggling ways.

[King Cousland]

LucidlyInsane wrote...

@King Cousland: You may be right there. For all that people talked about hating the "brown" of DA:O, I liked the more subtle colour palette.

DA2 didn't quite feel like "proper" Dragon Age, and maybe it was designed not to. It felt very confused in a lot of places - you're fighting against a philosophy, but boss battles! Mages are oppressed, but widely shown to betray you! I liked the shades of moral grey, but it was so self-inconsistent and confused in a lot of niggling ways.

I know what you mean. It isn't just the new art style, nor is it just the writing, but I can't quite put my finger on why the two games just feel so different from each other. 

Modifié par King Cousland, 17 août 2012 - 05:16 .

[LucidlyInsane]

There were some newer writers, weren't there? Not sure...

Maybe it's where the relative concerns of each lie. DA:O focused on an epic story against character, "hero's odyssey" stuff, and had enough Tolkien references to have the man rolling in his grave. DAII went the personal route and focused on people and a township, rather than the hero's quest structure.

Maybe that? I'm not entirely certain either.