280 réponses à ce sujet

[TEWR]

Fast Jimmy wrote... 

The problem with the wheel is that, to roughly paraphrase Donny Darko, there are other things to take into account here, like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these three categories and then just deny everything else.

Well spoken on the flaws of the system. How would you, personally, revamp the voiced protagonist to better allow a person to roleplay in a suitable -- if not amazing -- fashion?

[LinksOcarina]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote... 

The problem with the wheel is that, to roughly paraphrase Donny Darko, there are other things to take into account here, like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these three categories and then just deny everything else.

Well spoken on the flaws of the system. How would you, personally, revamp the voiced protagonist to better allow a person to roleplay in a suitable -- if not amazing -- fashion?

Didn't they say that they were looking into improving the wheel anyway?

[Nomen Mendax]

Olmert wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Interesting that you are replaying DAO as I'm playing DA2 at the moment.  I never got close to finishing it and it and I'm attempting to do so now. I have almost the opposite experience to you, I rarely reloaded DAO saves to redo dialog (except for fun).  At the risk of repetition I find it really hard to choose between paraphrases as I just feel I don't have enough information to figure out what Hawke is going to say (other than the obvious agree / disagree choices).  I also feel that the game is really pushing me as a player to consistently pick happy, snarky or grumpy Hawke which really doesn't seem very interesting to me.

Yeah, it's odd how the experiences can differ so much.  I frankly don't know how to explain it.

It's quite interesting - maybe it would make for a good psychology project!

[Lotion Soronarr]

jbrand2002uk wrote...

Personally I don't see what all the fuss about the icons is over they did a perfectly good job of given the general idea of the forthcoming response so in truth there wasn't a single instance where I was shocked by the response Hawke gave.

ERm..what's all the fuss about?

Mabye becasue HOW something is said goes a long way to establishing a character. It's not enough to know the answer you pick will be "diplomatic" or "agressive".

Me?
I've given up home on BioWare ever creating a true RPG again.
I hate the dialogue wheel. Heck, I hate 90% of the design choices from DA2.

Modifié par Lotion Soronnar, 30 août 2012 - 06:50 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Olmert wrote...

First, Sylvius, regarding your attempt to "correct" me on my vocabulary, I did indeed mean to use the term "redundant" and I used the term correctly.

"redundant, adj. [/b]1. characterized by verbosity or unnecessary repetition in expressing ideas; prolix: a redundant style.  2. being in excess; exceeding what is usual or natural: a redundant part.  [b]3. having some unusual or extra part or feature. ..."

Each part provided something the other did not.  The voiced line contained the details regarding the delivery of the line - the tone and emotion that couldn't be conveyed by the text - while the full text provided the foreknowledge the player requires to make an informed decision.

This clearly fails the test for logical redundancy, your colloquial definitions notwithstanding.

And before you try to highlight something like that to embarrass someone else, you really ought to make sure you are correct before you make a fool of yourself.

I am not trying to embarrass you.  I am trying to understand you and your playstyle.

Secondly, how does full text diminish delivery of the voiced line you ask? (Not really expecting an answer.)

Regardless of whether I expected an answer, I did want one.  That's why I asked the question - to get an answer.

Here.  Redundancy is bad.  It is not a good quality, in case you don't know it.

"Bad" isn't the sort of characteristic that stands alone.  Nothing is a priori bad; it's not possible.  So, if having the voiced line repeat the full text is bad, why is it bad?  What about that repetition makes the repetition bad?

As for your theory on why Bioware no longer provides full text, go on fabricating unlikely reasons that make you think you can "enlighten" them.  I'll just say that if Bioware wanted to continue to give full text they'd do it just like they did it for DAO. That would work, wouldn't it?  If they really wanted to provide full text.

No, actually.  Their own statements on the issue make this clear.  They insist that full text dialogue options are not compatible with the voiced protagonist, as the qualities of "good writing" for a silent protagonist and a voiced protagonist are different (I don't necessarily agree with this, but this is their stated position).  As such, the good writing for which they strive does not allow them to use full text, so instead they seek alternatives.

I argued, as you just did, that they could just give us teh full text, but they've since explained their position that this isn't possible.  So I don't ask for full text.  I ask for full control over my character, by whatever mechanism they find to replace full text.

Finally, you ask, how do I choose dialog options when I don't know what those options entail?

I do ask that, because I want to know.  I would like someone who thinks DA2's dialogue system works to explain the mechanism by which he selects dialogue options.

I do know well enough what my chosen option entails through the paraphrased line.  I have had less trouble navigating DA2's dialog, with its intent/tone icons and short answers, than I have had choosing dialog in DAO.  For me, I routinely go back to previous saves to replay dialog in DAO.  I'm replaying that now so I have this fresh in my mind.  I never once had to go back and redo dialog in DA2 because I was mistaken in a line's effect, and I've completed DA2 twice now.

So how do you do it?  By what mechanism do you select paraphrases?  How do you ensure the coherence of your character?  How do you know which dialogue options won't contradict the motives you've already established for previous in-character decisions?

How do you do that?

And what, incidentally, do you mean by "a line's effect?"  The direct effect of a dialogue selection is that your character says that thing.  Nothing beyond that matters to me.

I don't know exactly why that is, but I think it's because of the way Bioware has written DA2 more clearly.

I don't understand how the paraphrases, which often tell us nothing at all about the spoken line to follow, could possibly be clearer than DAO's full text, which tells us exactly what the line is.  Every detail of DAO's lines is made available to us prior to selecting that line.  Comparatively, DA2 tells us almost nothing.

[zyntifox]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Olmert wrote...

"Full information", as opposed to redundant text, is not a problem in my view.  But it's a matter of artful writing and subject to interpretation.  Bioware has artistic license to use the phrases they feel represent the gist of the voiced line, and I doubt this practice will ever satisfy you and others who are against voiced protagonists.

Finally, you ask, how do I choose dialog options when I don't know what those options entail?  I do know well enough what my chosen option entails through the paraphrased line.  I have had less trouble navigating DA2's dialog, with its intent/tone icons and short answers, than I have had choosing dialog in DAO.  For me, I routinely go back to previous saves to replay dialog in DAO.  I'm replaying that now so I have this fresh in my mind.  I never once had to go back and redo dialog in DA2 because I was mistaken in a line's effect, and I've completed DA2 twice now.  I don't know exactly why that is, but I think it's because of the way Bioware has written DA2 more clearly.  I just know that I've had no problem with DA2 dialog.

I'm still hopeful that DA2's paraphrase system can be improved upon but we will all have to wait and see what Bioware comes up with.  Personally I'm not completely against voiced protagonists as a matter of principle, it's more about what we have to give up to get one.  From my perspective the gains (a voiced protagonist and a more cinematic experience) don't come close to out-weighing the losses, which I believe to well beyond the issue we've been discussing.

Interesting that you are replaying DAO as I'm playing DA2 at the moment.  I never got close to finishing it and it and I'm attempting to do so now. I have almost the opposite experience to you, I rarely reloaded DAO saves to redo dialog (except for fun).  At the risk of repetition I find it really hard to choose between paraphrases as I just feel I don't have enough information to figure out what Hawke is going to say (other than the obvious agree / disagree choices).  I also feel that the game is really pushing me as a player to consistently pick happy, snarky or grumpy Hawke which really doesn't seem very interesting to me.

I did about 50 reloads due to the character saying something i did not want him to say just in act 1. When i got to act 2 i stopped caring and started to play the way Bioware seems to want us to play the game, pick a tone and stick to it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Personally I'm not completely against voiced protagonists as a matter of principle

Neither am I.  If BioWare could voice the protagonist while still letting me design his personality from the ground up, that would be awesome, and a clear improvement over the silent protagonist.

But so far, nothing the voiced protagonist has given us is worth anything like what we've lost as a result of implementing the voice.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Cstaf wrote...

I did about 50 reloads due to the character saying something i did not want him to say just in act 1. When i got to act 2 i stopped caring and started to play the way Bioware seems to want us to play the game, pick a tone and stick to it.

I tried to chalk it all up to the unreliable narrator and just ignore Hawke's actions as being Varric's lies.  But as soon as I did that I found I had no reason to keep playing.

So I stopped.

[Sylvius the Mad]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Didn't they say that they were looking into improving the wheel anyway?

They have said many times that they think they can improve the paraphrase system.

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...
Personally I'm not completely against voiced protagonists as a matter of principle

Neither am I.  If BioWare could voice the protagonist while still letting me design his personality from the ground up, that would be awesome, and a clear improvement over the silent protagonist.

But so far, nothing the voiced protagonist has given us is worth anything like what we've lost as a result of implementing the voice.

Ditto.

[wsandista]

MerinTB wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...
Personally I'm not completely against voiced protagonists as a matter of principle

Neither am I.  If BioWare could voice the protagonist while still letting me design his personality from the ground up, that would be awesome, and a clear improvement over the silent protagonist.

But so far, nothing the voiced protagonist has given us is worth anything like what we've lost as a result of implementing the voice.

Ditto.

I would agree, but I think that it would take a tremendous amount of resources to implement a voiced PC that allows the control that a silent PC allows. Personally I would prefer more gameplay much more than a voiced PC if given the choice(and assuming voiced PC allows me full control of the PC).

[Fast Jimmy]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote... 

The problem with the wheel is that, to roughly paraphrase Donny Darko, there are other things to take into account here, like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these three categories and then just deny everything else.

Well spoken on the flaws of the system. How would you, personally, revamp the voiced protagonist to better allow a person to roleplay in a suitable -- if not amazing -- fashion?

It is not an easy task, at all. I don't begrudge Bioware the difficulty of it. 

Honestly, I think having a silent protagonist, and then including the wheel (or some mechanism like it) for cinematics would be acceptable for me. That way the majority of text would not need to be voiced (and, hence, the writer's and VA's intentions and inflections are not spelled out, which does not conflict with what the player had intended) and then for big scenes, we could choose what our character says in more of a paraphrased attempt. With the limited amount of actual lines needing to be voiced, they could get away with having multiple VA's, so we could choose our cinematic voice at the beginning of the game (somewhat like with DA:O).

If this voice was only limited to party banter and directed cinematics (and these cinematics were not littered everywhere across the game in a way that brought no value to the story), I could see this a totally suitable method. It takes the control away from the player the least amount possible, it gives a voice for important scenes when neccessary, it allows party banter and it gives us options on how our character sounds.

But, since Bioware is 100% staying on board with the voiced protagonist 100% of the time, I don't know of an easy way to combat the disparity. Maybe removing tones altogether, just having the character deliver the line the same, regardless of how many times they choose diplomatic/aggressive/snarky. So that a nice comment will always sound like a nice comment, regardless of your previous choices. Then having a dialogue compass like what Crusty has suggested and put forth numerous times, that lets the intention of the statement affect how things are heard by the NPC.

So, you can say "what is the weather like tomorrow, friend?" and have the line sound the same when your character says it, regardless. But based on the tone you choose in the actual UI, the NPC might react differently. If said nicely, they will say "Oh, it looks dandy!" If said sarcastically, they might respond with "Well, I'm not your FRIEND, friend." And if you used the aggressive intent, they might respond with "It looks like rain... looks like your BLOOD RAINING! ATTACK!"

Not a brilliant system, I know. I prefer the elegance of my mostly-silent PC more. But given that Bioware's most successful selling game to date used a silent protagonist and came out four years ago, I don't understand the dedication to moving to a fully voiced main character.

[Nomen Mendax]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

...

But, since Bioware is 100% staying on board with the voiced protagonist 100% of the time, I don't know of an easy way to combat the disparity. Maybe removing tones altogether, just having the character deliver the line the same, regardless of how many times they choose diplomatic/aggressive/snarky. So that a nice comment will always sound like a nice comment, regardless of your previous choices. Then having a dialogue compass like what Crusty has suggested and put forth numerous times, that lets the intention of the statement affect how things are heard by the NPC.

So, you can say "what is the weather like tomorrow, friend?" and have the line sound the same when your character says it, regardless. But based on the tone you choose in the actual UI, the NPC might react differently. If said nicely, they will say "Oh, it looks dandy!" If said sarcastically, they might respond with "Well, I'm not your FRIEND, friend." And if you used the aggressive intent, they might respond with "It looks like rain... looks like your BLOOD RAINING! ATTACK!"

Not a brilliant system, I know. I prefer the elegance of my mostly-silent PC more. But given that Bioware's most successful selling game to date used a silent protagonist and came out four years ago, I don't understand the dedication to moving to a fully voiced main character.

I don't really see this as an acceptable solution, if the delivery is flat without any specific tone then I don't see this as fulfilling Bioware's goals or being supported by people who like a voiced PC (not that I'm saying I have any better solution).

I do agree that even if Bioware manages to improve the paraphrase system including tone is going to be problematic, both in terms of the amount of voice acting and how to display lines in the interface.  

To give an example (which I'll make vague and non-spoilery) at one point my Hawke chose to execute a deranged person.  She (Hawke) did this as she thought this was the best thing she could do under the circumstances. When she killed him her tonal delivery was very flippant for the circumstances.  I'm assuming that is because my most frequent dialogue choice is the snarky one.  However, I didn't find the tone at all right for my Hawke, since just because she is often snarky in conversation doesn't mean that she thinks it appropiate at such a serious moment.

The obvious solution would be to give the player the choice of what to say rather than having the game pick the line. But this then becomes an issue with the interface since I need three paraphrases all of which basically mean the same thing ("I'm going to have to kill you") but only differ in tone.  Combine this with the fact that you have another choice which presumably would also need its set of lines with different tones and you get a horrible mess, and makes me realize why Bioware wanted to choose your tone for you some of the time! 

My guess is that this is one of the things that they are trying to fix.  I really do think that there is a lot they can do to improve the system, but with voice and tone you are either going to have fairly minimal choice in terms of tones or have to spend a fortune on voice acting.

Modifié par Nomen Mendax, 30 août 2012 - 04:17 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

The obvious solution would be to give the player the choice of what to say rather than having the game pick the line. But this then becomes an issue with the interface since I need three paraphrases all of which basically mean the same thing ("I'm going to have to kill you") but only differ in tone.  Combine this with the fact that you have another choice which presumably would also need its set of lines with different tones and you get a horrible mess, and makes me realize why Bioware wanted to choose your tone for you some of the time! 

It's only a mess because of the wheel design.  This is a UI problem, and UI problems are always fixable.

After all, we have seen BioWare offer more than 6 dialogue options at a time before.  They even do it with the wheel using the investigate option.  All that is is a branching hub - they could do the same with the action choices on the wheel.  Each of the three options on the right could lead to a tone selection.

So this isn't only a solvable problem, it's a previously solved problem.

[Mr Fixit]

Nomen Mendax wrote...


My guess is that this is one of the things that they are trying to fix.  I really do think that there is a lot they can do to improve the system, but with voice and tone you are either going to have fairly minimal choice in terms of tones or have to spend a fortune on voice acting.

I don't think there's a way around this. In order to have a voiced protagonist and at the same time offer players maximum range of choice with regards to tone and intent, BioWare has to record a huge amount of lines. I honestly don't see another solution.

Thing is, resources are limited. If they do this, and that's always a possibility, other segments of production will have to suffer.

[Fast Jimmy]

Mr Fixit wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...


My guess is that this is one of the things that they are trying to fix.  I really do think that there is a lot they can do to improve the system, but with voice and tone you are either going to have fairly minimal choice in terms of tones or have to spend a fortune on voice acting.

I don't think there's a way around this. In order to have a voiced protagonist and at the same time offer players maximum range of choice with regards to tone and intent, BioWare has to record a huge amount of lines. I honestly don't see another solution.

Thing is, resources are limited. If they do this, and that's always a possibility, other segments of production will have to suffer.

To which I, again, will predictably say, again, a silent PC is super cheap and super modifiable. 

Honestly, I just don't get the adulation of the voiced PC. Its costs, limitations and fallacies GREATLY outweigh the small benefit it brings (being able to party banter or give a big speech). Sure, my character looks wooden in DA:O from time to time... but Hawke not feeling like my character at all happens the entire game. And dialogue options that are limited happen the entire game. And feeling like I only have three ways to say yes to everything lasts the entire game.

They took a once-in-a-while problem and created a solution that creates multiple and constant sources of problems for lots of players.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 30 août 2012 - 06:31 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mr Fixit wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

My guess is that this is one of the things that they are trying to fix.  I really do think that there is a lot they can do to improve the system, but with voice and tone you are either going to have fairly minimal choice in terms of tones or have to spend a fortune on voice acting.

I don't think there's a way around this. In order to have a voiced protagonist and at the same time offer players maximum range of choice with regards to tone and intent, BioWare has to record a huge amount of lines. I honestly don't see another solution.

They could make the voice optional.

They say they can't do that because the quality of the voiceless option would be poor, but I can't imagine improving the quality of the voiceless option wouldn't still be vastly cheaper than recording 20 times as many lines.

[Nomen Mendax]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

The obvious solution would be to give the player the choice of what to say rather than having the game pick the line. But this then becomes an issue with the interface since I need three paraphrases all of which basically mean the same thing ("I'm going to have to kill you") but only differ in tone.  Combine this with the fact that you have another choice which presumably would also need its set of lines with different tones and you get a horrible mess, and makes me realize why Bioware wanted to choose your tone for you some of the time! 

It's only a mess because of the wheel design.  This is a UI problem, and UI problems are always fixable.

After all, we have seen BioWare offer more than 6 dialogue options at a time before.  They even do it with the wheel using the investigate option.  All that is is a branching hub - they could do the same with the action choices on the wheel.  Each of the three options on the right could lead to a tone selection.

So this isn't only a solvable problem, it's a previously solved problem.

Agreed, but I'm trying to avoid ranting about the wheel for the sake of my blood pressure.  A different UI, and a more consistent use of the dialogue icons (which are sometimes tone, sometimes actions and sometimes intent) would go a long way to making things better.

Modifié par Nomen Mendax, 30 août 2012 - 06:33 .

[Nomen Mendax]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

To which I, again, will predictably say, again, a silent PC is super cheap and super modifiable. 

Honestly, I just don't get the adulation of the voice PC. Its costs, limitations and fallacies are GREATLY outweighed by the small benefit it brings (being able to party banter or give a big speech). Sure, my character looks wooden in DA:O from time to time... but Hawke not feeling like my character at all happens the entire game. And dialogue options that are limited happen the entire game. And feeling like I have three ways to say yes to everything lasts the entire game.

They took a once-in-a-while problem and created a solution that creates multiple and constant sources of problems for lots of players.

I'd expand your argument to the whole notion of making the game more cinematic.  I gather that making cinematic cut-scenes (or cut-scenes generally) is expensive and time-consuming.  This makes it harder to make the game more responsive to player choices and encourages the developers to make games with relatively few outcomes (and mid-game states for that matter). 

So my ideal CRPG would look quite different from the direction that Bioware is going, but that's really my problem rather than Bioware's.  At least we know they are willing to change the conversation system from DA2.  The only thing I would like to know from Bioware are what their goals are in terms of player agency, and in providing information to players to make decisions about dialogue options. To echo Sylvius earlier in the thread it would be nice to know what kinds of play style they intend to support.

[edit] But, in regard to the bolded bit, how many people feel like like this?  You do, I do (and obvioulsly Sylvius does), but if we are in a small minority then Bioware may, quite reasonably, decide that this is an issue that just isn't worth bothering with. [/edit]

Modifié par Nomen Mendax, 30 août 2012 - 06:37 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

So my ideal CRPG would look quite different from the direction that Bioware is going, but that's really my problem rather than Bioware's. 

I think they got it almost right with Baldur's Gate, and then have been heading in the wrong direction ever since.

Now they're just going faster.

[tklivory]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

but Hawke not feeling like my character at all happens the entire game. 

[edit] But, in regard to the bolded bit, how many people feel like this?  You do, I do (and obvioulsly Sylvius does), but if we are in a small minority then Bioware may, quite reasonably, decide that this is an issue that just isn't worth bothering with. [/edit]

I can honestly say I don't care about Hawke at all so far, really. I'm playing DA2 because I want to play the story and because I mostly like the companions. But Hawke him/herself? I don't care who he/she falls in love with (which was NOT the case in DA:O for the Warden), and I don't really care what Hawke has to say. It's... hard to play the game this way. I'll finish it - eventually - but I won't replay it nearly as often as I do with DA:O.

Modifié par tklivory, 30 août 2012 - 06:57 .

[Nomen Mendax]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

So my ideal CRPG would look quite different from the direction that Bioware is going, but that's really my problem rather than Bioware's. 

I think they got it almost right with Baldur's Gate, and then have been heading in the wrong direction ever since.

Now they're just going faster.

I'd want a more robust relationship (or reputation) system than BG, I also want the ability to be much more pro-active, and to solve problems in multiple different ways (Fallout was great for that).  I'd love to be able to scout out / get information about places I want to attack and then be able to plan an attack in multiple different ways.  These are all things that an emphasis on presentation tends to work against.

Having said which I will commit heresy and say that I preferred DAO to BG (and Fallout to both of them), mostly this is because I'm not a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms setting, and because I preferred the companions in DAO (and the ability to have romances with them) to the companions in BG (which is probably more heresy).  I also never really fell in love with their translation of AD&D to the computer and preferred the Gold Box version of the rule set.

Modifié par Nomen Mendax, 30 août 2012 - 07:26 .

[jillabender]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

So my ideal CRPG would look quite different from the direction that Bioware is going, but that's really my problem rather than Bioware's. 

I think they got it almost right with Baldur's Gate, and then have been heading in the wrong direction ever since.

Now they're just going faster.

I'd want a more robust relationship (or reputation) system than BG, I also want the ability to be much more pro-active, and to solve problems in multiple different ways (Fallout was great for that).  I'd love to be able to scout out / get information about places I want to attack and then be able to plan an attack in multiple different ways.  These are all things that an emphasis on presentation tends to work against.

Having said which I will commit heresy and say that I preferred DAO to BG (and Fallout to both of them), mostly this is because I'm not a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms setting, and because I preferred the companions in DAO (and the ability to have romances with them) to the companions in BG (which is probably more heresy).  I also never really fell in love with their translation of AD&D to the computer and preferred the Gold Box version of the rule set.

I also prefer DA:O to Baldur's Gate (although I love both games), because, like you, I prefer the Dragon Age setting to the Forgotten Realms, and because DA:O offers more opportunities to interact with the companion characters. The party banters in Baldur's Gate, while great, tended to be few and far-between, as did opportunities for the PC to have in-depth conversations with the companion characters.

Another reason I prefer DA:O is the origin stories. While the story of BG2 was more open-ended than DA:O's, I didn't find the role-playing aspect of BG2 quite as satisfying, because my character was a stranger in the land of Amn, which made it a bit harder for me to find reasons for my character to act. (I should add that I didn't play the original Baldur's Gate: if I had, it might have made a difference in terms of my character having a personal history.)

In DA:O, having my character interact with people he or she grew up with, and having other characters comment on his or her background, made the character feel a lot more personal to me, and inspired me to want to flesh out my characters by giving them personal histories, and distinct personalities and outlooks on life.

It's been a long time sice I played BG2 – I should really play through it again one of these days. I'd be curious to see whether I'd approach it differently after playing DA:O.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

I'd want a more robust relationship (or reputation) system than BG, I also want the ability to be much more pro-active, and to solve problems in multiple different ways (Fallout was great for that).  I'd love to be able to scout out / get information about places I want to attack and then be able to plan an attack in multiple different ways.  These are all things that an emphasis on presentation tends to work against.

Having said which I will commit heresy and say that I preferred DAO to BG (and Fallout to both of them), mostly this is because I'm not a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms setting, and because I preferred the companions in DAO (and the ability to have romances with them) to the companions in BG (which is probably more heresy).  I also never really fell in love with their translation of AD&D to the computer and preferred the Gold Box version of the rule set.

I agree with you on the setting - I never liked the Forgotten Realms, even as a tabletop setting.  I won't agree on the characters, though, but that's largely due to DAO's rigid quest structure.  I probably would say that DAO's companions were stronger characters if the game were structured more like BG or NWN where quests didn't always need to be completed in order.  But DAO's quest design prevents us from seeing all aspects of those characters as people.  We don't get to expose them to as many different stimuli.

Of course, I like to play all of the characters.  I loathe how DA2 has Isabela constantly heading off on her own.

The quest structure and exploration is really what sets BG apart from all other BioWare games (including BG2).  There's some of it in NWN (you can find quest items before you know that quest even exists), and in ME (you can travel to the uncharted worlds for no reason at all), but BG really did just give us a world and set us loose in it, and that's what I'd like to see BioWare do again.  BioWare's strong narratives provide a brilliant backdrop for whatever our characters choose to do.

[jillabender]

Sylvius the Mad wrote…

I agree with you on the setting - I never liked the Forgotten Realms, even as a tabletop setting. I won't agree on the characters, though, but that's largely due to DAO's rigid quest structure. I probably would say that DAO's companions were stronger characters if the game were structured more like BG or NWN where quests didn't always need to be completed in order. But DAO's quest design prevents us from seeing all aspects of those characters as people. We don't get to expose them to as many different stimuli.

That's a good point – Baldur's Gate did offer a lot of variety in terms of the way companion characters reacted to the quests. Personally, I still prefer the style of character interaction in DA:O, though – I prefer to get to know the companion characters by having in-depth conversations with them whenever I choose.

DA2, for me, was where the rigid companion quest structure really started to get in the way of the presentation of the companion characters. I missed being able to decide for myself when a certain crucial conversation with a companion takes place, and when my relationship with a companion character (whether romantic or platonic) progresses to another level. DA:O's system of character interaction gave me more freedom to define for myself the significance of my character's relationships to his or her story.

Modifié par jillabender, 06 septembre 2012 - 06:54 .