307 réponses à ce sujet

[PaulSX]

GodWood wrote...

Grizzly46 wrote...
And, one very important thing: a voiced PC has become essential in RPGs.

Trufax.

All the recent RPGs with a silent protaganist (Fallout 3, DA:O, Skyrim etc) have all bombed hard.

...

Bethesda games are good without voiced protaganist because they are essentially first person games, but DAO would be much better if there is voice over for the player's character. I have to point out that I had no problems with playing just human character because the race really does not matter. if you look at games like gothic, the witcher or risen, single race main character works very well and of course the voice-over helped a lot. I think the problem with DA2 is that they tried too hard to mimic a mass effect experience so that the main character Hawke lost moral ambiguity. 

[Heimdall]

They could just do what I've seen some JRPGs do, voice the important main story and companion conversations but keep the majority of the side quests silent. I don't think I'd particularly enjoy that presentation in a Bioware RPG, but it would aid the budget.

[zyntifox]

Terror_K wrote...

Merlex wrote...

I don't have DAO, but i've played a little on my son's PS3. My opinion is that DAO is better than DA2 in a some ways. But i still enjoyed DA2, i only play on nightmare. I like to set up tactics, and try to develope party synergy.

To be fair though, DAO on the consoles vs. the PC version is like night and day. DAO on consoles is merely a good game... DAO on the PC is a fantastic game.

I disagree. I play DA:O on the PS3 and it's still a fantastic game. Only missing the move-to-point command but that is really my only complaint.

[zyntifox]

Grizzly46 wrote...

The OP has it right from start to finish.

DA2 was good (apart from aforementioned problems with anime style combat, art and so on) but suffered a lot from the hype after DAO. And, one very important thing: a voiced PC has become essential in RPGs (though I wished they would have used someone else for male Hawke, but that's mostly a question of personal preference - the guy didn't dio a very good job).

I disagree. With the technological advances in video games the last 10 years the voiced PC in a RPG have been become viable but hardly essential.

Modifié par Cstaf, 04 septembre 2012 - 03:09 .

[Merlex]

batlin wrote...

Grizzly46 wrote...

Are you saying those games would have been better or worse with voice overs?

If it would mean that we would have had less dialogue options due to the limitations of voice acting? The games would have easily been worse.

To be fair, DA2 didn't have any less dialogue options than NWN. In some conversations, there were multiple diplomatic and humorous lines. The one you got depended on your dominate tone. I don't know about the aggressive ones though. The voice protagonist was poorly implemented in DA2. I'd prefer to to see all of the dialogue options in full text. The one i pick would determine the tone not the other way around.

[TiaraBlade]

They already did it by releasing the extended DLC for ME3's endings. I have hope that they will learn from their mistakes and blow our minds with DA3!

Side note: some of the ideas from the OP was solid. I personally saw DA2 as a noble experiment that failed: they tried to make it different that would appeal to both old fans and new but it didn't hit. I did like some of the little things that they put in there, like a vocal protagonist (PLEASE KEEP MY PC SPEAKING) or being able to remove your helmet in cut scenes. I always felt the duel between myself and Logain was undercut by the silly bucket on my head (I was wearing the dragons blood armor or whatever it was called).

[Sylvius the Mad]

LinksOcarina wrote...

but honestly, that would give false information, since it only measures one aspect of the game in that regard, hence its irrelevency based on a presupposition. 

It's not false information.  It's limited information, as all empirically collected information is.

I don't care how many you completed.  I've completed DAO only once - that tells you nothing about how I played it, only how much I played it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Grizzly46 wrote...

No seriously, do you want a silent protagonist?

Yes.  Honestly, take DA2 as it is, strip out the PC voice, and it's a vastly better game.

[FaWa]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Grizzly46 wrote...

No seriously, do you want a silent protagonist?

Yes.  Honestly, take DA2 as it is, strip out the PC voice, and it's a vastly better game.

I wouldn't go that far, but I somewhat agree.
Also note that the game improves when you mod in the ability to play as a dwarf/elf. Is it clunky? Yes. Does the voice fit? Nope. But is it more fun? YES. Humans are so boring I am SO tired of humans.

[Iakus]

FaWa wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Grizzly46 wrote...

No seriously, do you want a silent protagonist?

Yes.  Honestly, take DA2 as it is, strip out the PC voice, and it's a vastly better game.

I wouldn't go that far, but I somewhat agree.
Also note that the game improves when you mod in the ability to play as a dwarf/elf. Is it clunky? Yes. Does the voice fit? Nope. But is it more fun? YES. Humans are so boring I am SO tired of humans.

I can take or leave a silent protagonist.  And playing different races would be great but not strictly  a "must have"  But one thing that would make DA3 a lot better for me is the ability to visually modify the character and companions. Isabela looked a lot less silly once I added a mod that put her in black leather pants with a matching blouse.  Still "piratey" looking.  Still sexy.  But someone I can take a lot more seriously

Thankfully, looks like a degree of customization will be included.

[Heimdall]

I've reached a point where I value a silent protagonist for his versatility in interactions and roleplaying and a voiced protagonist for his greater connection to the world around him. So I think I'll be happy with their choice as long as they bear in mind that they should not approach the voiced protagonist the same way mass effect did, Dragon Age demands more wiggle room in the character.

Modifié par Lord Aesir, 05 septembre 2012 - 05:38 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

suntzuxi wrote...

Bethesda games are good without voiced protaganist because they are essentially first person games, but DAO would be much better if there is voice over for the player's character.

If everything else is the same, yes, I would agree.  Voicing the PC is not, in and of itself, a problem.

But the limitations created by voicing the PC are very bad things.  DAO gave us full control over how each and every line was delivered.  As long as we get to keep that, the voice isn't a bad thing.  DAO let us know exactly what our PC was going to say, word for word.  As long as we get to keep that, the voice isn't a bad thing.

But we don't get to keep those.  DA2 took those options away.  We don't get to know what the dialogue options are until after we've selected them.  We don't get to choose how each line is delivered.  So DA2 is far more limiting, and those limitations arise from the implementation of the voice.

Yes, all else being equal, a voice would improve DAO.  But all else isn't equal.

[LinksOcarina]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

but honestly, that would give false information, since it only measures one aspect of the game in that regard, hence its irrelevency based on a presupposition. 

It's not false information.  It's limited information, as all empirically collected information is.

I don't care how many you completed.  I've completed DAO only once - that tells you nothing about how I played it, only how much I played it.

So why did you ask the question when the results are illelevent? That just makes it a bad question givng out misleading information. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 05 septembre 2012 - 08:25 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

I didn't ask how many times you completed the game. I asked how many different characters you played. Those characters you created but abandoned after the prologue would count.

Ideally I suppose we'd collect playtime information for each character so we could determine some useful minimum playtime threshold. I would think playing until Ostagar is reached would be sufficient in DAO, while in DA2 a character would count as played once access to Kirkwall was gained.

[LinksOcarina]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I didn't ask how many times you completed the game. I asked how many different characters you played. Those characters you created but abandoned after the prologue would count.

Ideally I suppose we'd collect playtime information for each character so we could determine some useful minimum playtime threshold. I would think playing until Ostagar is reached would be sufficient in DAO, while in DA2 a character would count as played once access to Kirkwall was gained.

You do realize that collecting empirical data like this will lead to nothing, right? mainly because I know people who have played and stopped because of other games coming out, come back and play again and again, or played it once and traded it in for money.

Also, trying to detrime a threshold for how long a playtime is on average has no correlation towards anything relevant about the game, and opens it up to misleading claims. So again, this seems irrelevent to me. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

LinksOcarina wrote...

You do realize that collecting empirical data like this will lead to nothing, right? mainly because I know people who have played and stopped because of other games coming out, come back and play again and again, or played it once and traded it in for money.

1. Anecdotes are not data.

2. You're missing the point.

For each player, enjoying a game involves playing it with a certain number of characters.  Is there some correlation between that and which games they prefer?  I don't know, and we'll never know unless we measure it, but you're declaring in advance that measuring anything at all is a waste of time.

If it matters, measure it.

If you do not measure it, you cannot determine whether it matters.

[LinksOcarina]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

You do realize that collecting empirical data like this will lead to nothing, right? mainly because I know people who have played and stopped because of other games coming out, come back and play again and again, or played it once and traded it in for money.

1. Anecdotes are not data.

2. You're missing the point.

For each player, enjoying a game involves playing it with a certain number of characters.  Is there some correlation between that and which games they prefer?  I don't know, and we'll never know unless we measure it, but you're declaring in advance that measuring anything at all is a waste of time.

If it matters, measure it.

If you do not measure it, you cannot determine whether it matters.

I am declaring it in advance, because there is no way to measure a subjective preference. That is putting logic into a Pollack painting, something that will work on numerous levels for people based on their preferences. For a video game it can be a mix of its art style, gameplay mechanics, voice overs, music, storyline, overall presentation, and so forth.

All of which is subjective inherently. As some may say, there are objectionable things in between, a badly coded game is a badly coded game, and it shouldn't get a pass from there. But because what you are asking is all about how far a person gets  playing the game, even with questions based on the games quality. In other words, of course people have games they prefer to play, some have more than one.

That shouldn't matter much, because you can always find a game, past or present, to play based on your preferences. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Right, but is there macro-level correlation between the types of games players prefer and the number of times they tend to play games generally?

I'm not asking whether they play games they like more. I'm not asking which games they prefer. I'm asking whether there's a discernable pattern.

And I am most definitely not measuring a preference.  I'm measuring an enumerable value.  How many different characters do you play in a typical game?

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 05 septembre 2012 - 11:23 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

For some rough preliminary data collection, I opened a poll:

http://social.biowar...96/polls/39175/

I'm aware of the applicable selection biases.

[LinksOcarina]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Right, but is there macro-level correlation between the types of games players prefer and the number of times they tend to play games generally?

I'm not asking whether they play games they like more. I'm not asking which games they prefer. I'm asking whether there's a discernable pattern.

And I am most definitely not measuring a preference.  I'm measuring an enumerable value.  How many different characters do you play in a typical game?

A value irrelvent because it does not measure anything but quantity, which in of itself tells us nothing important.

So even if there is a large-scale link to types of games and the number of times they play them, it doesn't go into the important question as to why they decide that, something which is always subjective. Basically, its useless information in the end. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

LinksOcarina wrote...

So even if there is a large-scale link to types of games and the number of times they play them, it doesn't go into the important question as to why they decide that, something which is always subjective. Basically, its useless information in the end.

You still misunderstand.  It's not about how many times people play the sort of game they prefer.  It's about how many times they play a typical game.

If you play a game once, and you feel like you've experienced what the game has to offer, you might want to replay it if you liked it, but if you don't you still got to play the whole game.

But if you play a game once, but that playthrough creates the desire to play the game over and over again to see what can be different, then a single playthrough is insufficient.

[Icinix]

1st - Most important for me - totally offline single player. Let me play offline, let me have DLC / expansions installed that don't require me to connect to the internet.

2nd - DAO Camera. DA2 was far too close for my liking. Being able to zoom up hire and get a larger over view of the field is a must.

3rd - Greater character customisation - other races would be great, but if not, give us a stupid amount of customisation options.

4th - Don't force a character down our throats, especially if you're going to have them do something stupid that we work out well in advance of them doing it. That totally breaks the game for me.

[Nomadiac]

 I may be wrong, but I'm under the belief that the reason for paraphrasing in DA2 was so the player wouldn't read a line in their head and have it repeated verbatim immediately after, thereby lessening the impact of a voiced line. So if there's a voiced PC I would want some form of paraphrasing - but more along the lines of, say, DX:HR, where the paraphrase was simply a shortened/slightly reworded version of the actual line and clearly communicated its meaning. I was never contradicted by Jensen after choosing a line, but as many of the words were new to me and his voice was different to how my inner voice read the line, it still had impact.thousandhp.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2011-08-29_00002.jpg
That probably also has to do with DX:HR's intent-marked lines vs. DA2's tone system. Tone generally follows intent anyway, so I'd much rather have intent than tone, though it's fairly easy to communicate both.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Icinix wrote...

2nd - DAO Camera. DA2 was far too close for my liking. Being able to zoom up hire and get a larger over view of the field is a must.

Good news: Mike Laidlaw agrees with you.  He said prior to DA2's release that a movable camera was "critical for tactical play".

Bad news: Mike's preference didn't seem to have any effect on DA2's development.

[Icinix]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Icinix wrote...

2nd - DAO Camera. DA2 was far too close for my liking. Being able to zoom up hire and get a larger over view of the field is a must.

Good news: Mike Laidlaw agrees with you.  He said prior to DA2's release that a movable camera was "critical for tactical play".

Bad news: Mike's preference didn't seem to have any effect on DA2's development.

HAHAH! Awesome.

Well fingers crossed. I can hope DA3 has a lot of those good ideas from DAO and other games overight the not so good ideas from DA2.