307 réponses à ce sujet

[BioFan (Official)]

I'm going to buy it anyway, but here is what i think will make the game pre-orders bulk up tremendously.

Hint at morrigan, flemeth and Cullen being in the game
advertise choices will matter

[Terror_K]

Ericander77 wrote...

advertise choices will matter

They did that for the entire run of the Mass Effect games, and in the end that turned out to be a lie. Why would anybody believe them now?

[Sylvius the Mad]

They can get me to buy it by allowing me to play the game without ever being surprised by my character's behaviour.

[stonemyst]

If they want people to pre order then they need a pre order only dlc. I think they can sell da3 just due to people wanting to see what effect thier play throughs have on the next. I want auto leveling gear but not pay for them. I want Shales story to go on more deeproads.

[Parmida]

Toolset please.
And Cullen as a companion and bi LI.

Modifié par Parmida, 29 août 2012 - 05:21 .

[Cygnus x1]

Maybe if It were DAO3 and not DA2.
DA2 is a completley different game,I only consider it a part of the DA world but not a sequel.
DA2 as a standalone was and is a good game, but it was not DAO2.

I'm hoping DA2 was only a stepping stone and experiment to create an epic true sequel to the Origonal Story and charactors,and the DA2 charactors are more than welcome to join in with the charactors Of origons at the campfire.

[MerinTB]

LinksOcarina wrote...
Allow me to make a prediction.

Wasteland 2 will fail. Yep. I said it. Sad too, because I bought a physical copy of it on the kickstarter. But Brian Fargo is one guy that doesn't get it, sadly. He may want to make a game for his audience, the type of game he likes. He may want to cater to their whims and hate the system, but ironically he just gave the keys to the kingdom instead. Now, instead of one publisher asking ten things, he now has 1,000 fans asking 10,000 things. And too many of these fans have no clue what they want either.

Hell, the first inkling of this is the alpha screen they showed. All I see is a sea of complaints; the colors are too vibrant, it doesn't look real, it looks cartoonish, the isometric view is crap, there is no detail in the screenshot, there is not enough color in-game. This and that, complaints and threats to remove their kickstarter pledge, because that is how fans are. No offense, I am one too, but we have a schema of what it should be. Always. And we are always dissapointed by the most banal things that make it a nerd nitpick in the end.

No wonder people see us as having our heads in the sand...but I digress.

The sad truth, is that real RPG fans don't have to fight a good fight. That noble quest doesn't exist. Real RPG fans realize that the artificial labels seperating the genres are bogus, that RPGs can come in all shapes and sizes, that a story and a gameplay mechanic never have to cater to one specific, narrow ideal. And lastly, that RPGs will never be mainstream. The last one makes me laugh the most as a major charge by angry cynics. Dragon Age II is no where near the mainstream. That is the biggest joke of all.

Two quick things -

Wasteland 2 has already succeeded.  After twenty years of companies saying no one would want the game, fans pre-paid for the game to be made.  That's a success.
Wasteland 2 has already succeeded, also, because even moreso than Double Fine, it was a huge Kickstarter success story - practically the biggest one as far as video games go on Kickstarter (not as much money as Double Fine, but a far larger underdog by most people's estimation.)
Wasteland 2 has already succeeded, finally, because it doesn't have to make ANY additional sales to have been financially successful.  This is the beauty of Kickstarter back projects - the people making the game have been paid to make it, and no one is left that has to be paid back.  Every single sale after the game is finished and released is pure profit.

The other thing - because you saw a handful of people criticize the screen-shots, that's an insignificant amount compared to 60,000 backers.  Even if it were 600 people ****ing and moaning, that's 1%... and it was more like a dozen.

You know what shows that Wasteland 2 is not the "RPG fans don't know what they want whinefest" you are trying to paint it to be?  The fact that the majority of responses to Fargo's posts in their forums and in the comments on Kickstarter could be summarized as follows - "We loved Wasteland, we love your vision for this product, we trust you to bring us what we want" and Fargo, in turn, responding with "You said in this poll we ran that you wanted this over that, so we are giving you this as you asked."

Don't project your own inability to know what you want onto others - you said you ordered a boxed copy, supposedly because you wanted the game to succeed and you wanted the game for yourself, but now you are predicting, based on NOTHING, that it will fail.  YOU, sir, are what you are complaining about.

[FDrage]

Ericander77 wrote...

Hint at morrigan, flemeth and Cullen being in the game

why would "Cullen" help in selling DA3? Morrigan and Flemeth I can understand, but why Cullen .. except as a "continues thread" through out the DA - Franchise. The one character that survived it all.

[filetemo]

for DA3 I want:

varied environments
customisable companions
ancient evil-epic story
new graphics engine
slower combat

[Indoctrination]

Do not make promises during the marketing period that you guys don't intend to keep.

Can't make a game with meaningful choices in the story? Fine, don't promise us that. What has made me lose confidence in the company was how many lies Casey Hudson shamelessly told during the marketing of Mass Effect 3.

[zyntifox]

@Indoctrination

Amen to that. Though i felt more fooled by the marketing of DA2 than ME3. Might be due to not being as invested in that franchise and thus not following the news so closely.

[Cendrigal]

Honestly?

This may seem absolutely silly (And very unlikely given that it's Bioware.) - but if they go with the idea I read one of the developers talking about on IGN and design it as an open-world game.. Instant pre-order.

I am an absolute sucker for sandbox games.

I'd love to see Bioware's take on open-world freedom, and how it would influence classes and Companions.

[LinksOcarina]

MerinTB wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...
Allow me to make a prediction.

Wasteland 2 will fail. Yep. I said it. Sad too, because I bought a physical copy of it on the kickstarter. But Brian Fargo is one guy that doesn't get it, sadly. He may want to make a game for his audience, the type of game he likes. He may want to cater to their whims and hate the system, but ironically he just gave the keys to the kingdom instead. Now, instead of one publisher asking ten things, he now has 1,000 fans asking 10,000 things. And too many of these fans have no clue what they want either.

Hell, the first inkling of this is the alpha screen they showed. All I see is a sea of complaints; the colors are too vibrant, it doesn't look real, it looks cartoonish, the isometric view is crap, there is no detail in the screenshot, there is not enough color in-game. This and that, complaints and threats to remove their kickstarter pledge, because that is how fans are. No offense, I am one too, but we have a schema of what it should be. Always. And we are always dissapointed by the most banal things that make it a nerd nitpick in the end.

No wonder people see us as having our heads in the sand...but I digress.

The sad truth, is that real RPG fans don't have to fight a good fight. That noble quest doesn't exist. Real RPG fans realize that the artificial labels seperating the genres are bogus, that RPGs can come in all shapes and sizes, that a story and a gameplay mechanic never have to cater to one specific, narrow ideal. And lastly, that RPGs will never be mainstream. The last one makes me laugh the most as a major charge by angry cynics. Dragon Age II is no where near the mainstream. That is the biggest joke of all.

Two quick things -

Wasteland 2 has already succeeded.  After twenty years of companies saying no one would want the game, fans pre-paid for the game to be made.  That's a success.
Wasteland 2 has already succeeded, also, because even moreso than Double Fine, it was a huge Kickstarter success story - practically the biggest one as far as video games go on Kickstarter (not as much money as Double Fine, but a far larger underdog by most people's estimation.)
Wasteland 2 has already succeeded, finally, because it doesn't have to make ANY additional sales to have been financially successful.  This is the beauty of Kickstarter back projects - the people making the game have been paid to make it, and no one is left that has to be paid back.  Every single sale after the game is finished and released is pure profit.

The other thing - because you saw a handful of people criticize the screen-shots, that's an insignificant amount compared to 60,000 backers.  Even if it were 600 people ****ing and moaning, that's 1%... and it was more like a dozen.

You know what shows that Wasteland 2 is not the "RPG fans don't know what they want whinefest" you are trying to paint it to be?  The fact that the majority of responses to Fargo's posts in their forums and in the comments on Kickstarter could be summarized as follows - "We loved Wasteland, we love your vision for this product, we trust you to bring us what we want" and Fargo, in turn, responding with "You said in this poll we ran that you wanted this over that, so we are giving you this as you asked."

Don't project your own inability to know what you want onto others - you said you ordered a boxed copy, supposedly because you wanted the game to succeed and you wanted the game for yourself, but now you are predicting, based on NOTHING, that it will fail.  YOU, sir, are what you are complaining about.

Of course I want the game to succeed, but after seeing about thousands of people **** about an alpha screenshot and threaten to pull their money backing the game, I have a ton of doubts as to what the fans really want.

Wasteland 2 only succeeds if it sells. Having that many backers makes it an initial success, but that doesn't guaentee a success with fans: Its like everyone clamoring over the Ouya, a ton of people bought a system for $100 bucks. Ok, so that means its going to be a good system? Kickstarter may give it the foot in the door, but if the customer base is unsatisfied with the product, then Wasteland 2 fails as being their product, as Fargo promised.

And yeah he did post those polls. I hope it helps. But call me a tad pessemistic. Just because someone loves a previous game in a series does not mean they will love future iterations. Dragon Age alone is proof of that. Even with the user poll people will be unsatisfied, which is why I am slightly deterred by the initial responses. 

Since I never played the original until recently, I am somewhat indifferent as to how the final product is. It looks like it can be a good game overall, and I hope Fargo does a good job. That said, my personal feelings on the product are irrelevent to a logical conclusion here. Simply put, if people get all up in arms (even if its a minority) like that over something meaningless as "the game is too colorful", then the project is doomed. I know what I want, I want to just play a game and be at peace, I don't want to hear people **** about something they bought into, because in the end they choose to send the deposit, they have to live with it. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 29 août 2012 - 03:52 .

[LinksOcarina]

Terror_K wrote...

Your overall argument seems illogical to me, LinksOcarina. You seem to be saying that because the game is already restrictive to some degree, that there's no harm or difference in it restricting in other ways too, such as the voiced protagonist. If one is going to go by this logic, then one may as well also say that it's perfectly acceptable for BioWare to just make a game where the character is no more yours than Nathan Drak, Kratos, Batman, Ezio, etc. and take away dialogue and choice entirely, simply because restrictions on your roleplaying already exist in that they force you to adhere to a pre-defined narrative. Hell... even P&P roleplaying games have the GM forcing you to adhere to certain restrictions, so he may as well fill out your character sheets for you entirely and step in to circumvent your decisions, replacing them as his own.

This is where your basic point fails. This is supposed to be a roleplaying game, where you can pick and choose these aspects of your character, and it only makes sense that the more control a player has over their character, the greater the roleplaying freedom, and thus greater the roleplaying itself. Just because there are some forms of restrictions and linearity doesn't mean that it's perfectly fine to keep adding more of them to circumvent and prevent the ability to properly roleplay, which has been what BioWare is doing lately. You keep claiming that what DA2 and ME did are no different from what BG, NWN, DAO, etc. did, but there is quite a bit of difference. The more I can define the character, the more that character is mine, even if it's forced to adhere to certain restrictions. Restrictions and rules are part of the RPG experience and are required, but that doesn't mean they need to dominate and circumvent the player's ability to roleplay a character. ME and DA2 force me to be a set person that is admittedly somewhat BioWare's, and I get to steer them a certain degree, but that's it. BG, NWN, DAO, etc. do have certain circumstances forced upon the player, but they still get to define their character far more. They can give them their own names, give them their own personalities, beliefs and opinions far more than DA2 and ME can.

Personally, I didn't feel it was so bad in Mass Effect because that was always more of a hybrid title from the start, but Dragon Age started off as a more pure fantasy RPG and then changed the formula, sacrificing freedom and roleplaying for the sake of cinematics and a narrower, more linear story. Recently we've even seen BioWare squeeze player agency and roleplaying even further in Mass Effect 3, which was already a game series with a more pre-defined character than any other BioWare title to date. Thanks to lots of autodialogue, a lack of meaningful choices and consequences, an overall railroading of the entire narrative and too many dialogue wheels with only two options at a time on them, many players have felt that Shepard is no longer their character at all and is pretty much now BioWare's character entirely. Where players could once choose responses to reflect their Shepard, now he/she will often just sprout things leaving players constantly thinking, "my Shepard would never have said that!"

This is one of the main reasons I believe BioWare don't even want to make RPGs any more, and just want to make cinematic action games more in-line with the likes of Uncharted and Assassin's Creed, but that they want to keep claiming they are still a strong RPG developer. Because it seems that with each new title of theirs, player agency and roleplaying suffers more and more for the sake of cinematic flow, a narrower and more linear narrative, and because BioWare want to branch out to an audience who generally find their games "too talky, not enough mindless action!"

I'm sorry, but I do not see this as illogical at all. I would normally do a ten page response but I got work in a half hour and I wasted my time arguing with some dude over Wasteland 2 just now, so I want to keep this brief.

Basically, my argument was that the character was always restrained, and that the voiced protagonist is an irrelevent complaint because of that. It doesn't matter if its restricted more or less, the point is it was restricted to begin with. Now, I know a lot of people say they can have wiggle room to role-play and make up responses and voices in their head. Thats great you can do that.

but it is irrelevent to the games design, which was always to tell a story. And since I am always a story driven person I try to make the story make sense too. Thus far, I never was taken out of the moment of the story in games like Dragon Age 2 or Mass Effect. Maybe its just me, I don't know, but that is why I find this complaint to be somewhat deficent. So it could just be personal taste, but it doesn't make it invalid either. The last part irks me the most, because the overall attitude is that its incompatible with roleplaying, which I find to be even more ignorant. 

It is not a question about it being more or more restrictive, it is a question about how the mechanics were set up. If the point is to tell a narrative, a story and have characters populating it for you to interact with, then the restrictions were always there. If you feel that voiced protagonists are more confining, then thats your perogative. I just see it as an evolution of their mechanics after 14 years. 

[JasonPogo]

Bring back race choice and get rid of the anime ninja combat animations. Both would help great deal in my personal intrest.

[MerinTB]

LinksOcarina wrote...
Simply put, if people get all up in arms (even if its a minority) like that over something meaningless as "the game is too colorful", then the project is doomed. I know what I want, I want to just play a game and be at peace, I don't want to hear people **** about something they bought into, because in the end they choose to send the deposit, they have to live with it. 

I can agree with you here, absolutely.

But I still say that the "uproar" was less than 1% of the backers.

[simplykaotic222]

DA:O fighting style. DA2 didn't feel real enough. probably b/c when i killed people they blew up in lots of little pieces and jumped into the air extremely high. Im for jumping around and all, but not unbelievable distances.
Pre-ordered bonus: a good weapon & armor set, or something unique but useful.
Day 1 DLC. Sebastain didn't really feel like part of the game b/c you can't recruit him till act 2 so he felt like the odd man out. Javik however felt like he was apart of our team.

Im going to end up pre-ordering it no matter what. I've played the first 2, loved Origins, liked 2 so why not try 3. Any games after that however will depend on 3.

[Ostagar2011]

MerinTB wrote...

I can agree with you here, absolutely.

But I still say that the "uproar" was less than 1% of the backers.

Yeah, that's why the Exalted March expansion was cancelled - because that 1% waren't buying DLC. Because the 1% were in uproar, retailers told BioWare they didn't want a DA2 Ultimate Edition - to hell with the profits they could have earned from the 99% who loved the game.

Honestly - the "vocal minority" offensive was pretty thin at the outset, that's why BioWare changed its attack line to: "it's just people afraid of change" (ie not a minority).

[kingjezza]

There's not a lot they can do in all honesty, everything they have said makes it sound like they are making Dragon Age 2.5. In my opinion they should be looking to tweak and improve upon the first game, I get the impression they want to improve upon the second game.

They would have never have been getting my pre-order, My faith in Bioware's ability to produce quality games has long gone, that ship has well and truly sailed but I'll stick around and keep up to date with it, there are things which would push me in favour of a purchase down the line.

Return of the isometric camera.
Full party customisation.
No childish combat animations, speed toned down, basically better combat full stop.
Reintroduction of skills.
Decent length, more Origins, less DA2.
Waves kept to a bare minimum.
Varied locations, nobody wants to see the same damn cave over and over.
If we are going to have FedEx style quests then have them more like in Origins with the chanters board etc, rather than, you have found an item, return it to so and so.
A larger variety of beasties to fight.
More effort put in, I don't want to carry around 6 million belts, rings, whatever that are all the bleedin' same because somebody is too lazy to do item descriptions.
Do away with that pointless star rating system.
A more serious tone and art style, DA2 is a fairly childish game.
Do not make all the characters bi. Just create great characters, be them, straight, bi or full on gay.
I would actually tone down the importance of relationships completely but that's a personal preference.

Can't think of any more at the moment.

[MerinTB]

Ostagar2011 wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
I can agree with you here, absolutely.
But I still say that the "uproar" was less than 1% of the backers.

Yeah, that's why the Exalted March expansion was cancelled - because that 1% waren't buying DLC. Because the 1% were in uproar, retailers told BioWare they didn't want a DA2 Ultimate Edition - to hell with the profits they could have earned from the 99% who loved the game.

Honestly - the "vocal minority" offensive was pretty thin at the outset, that's why BioWare changed its attack line to: "it's just people afraid of change" (ie not a minority).

Uhm...

DA2 is not Wasteland 2.

[LinksOcarina]

MerinTB wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...
Simply put, if people get all up in arms (even if its a minority) like that over something meaningless as "the game is too colorful", then the project is doomed. I know what I want, I want to just play a game and be at peace, I don't want to hear people **** about something they bought into, because in the end they choose to send the deposit, they have to live with it. 

I can agree with you here, absolutely.

But I still say that the "uproar" was less than 1% of the backers.

Devils Advocate, but we can also say that the vocal minority for Mass Effect 3 is out there as well based on sales numbers and the number of people complaining about that. And since we are all RPG fans, that makes us automatically alpha nerds in terms and somewhat fickle to what we enjoy, and I use those terms lovingly. 

If its 1%, or 10%, or even 100%, the problem is that they speak the loudest. And that is all we shall hear if it goes down that road. That is my fear.

[Terror_K]

LinksOcarina wrote...

I'm sorry, but I do not see this as illogical at all. I would normally do a ten page response but I got work in a half hour and I wasted my time arguing with some dude over Wasteland 2 just now, so I want to keep this brief.

Basically, my argument was that the character was always restrained, and that the voiced protagonist is an irrelevent complaint because of that. It doesn't matter if its restricted more or less, the point is it was restricted to begin with. Now, I know a lot of people say they can have wiggle room to role-play and make up responses and voices in their head. Thats great you can do that.

but it is irrelevent to the games design, which was always to tell a story. And since I am always a story driven person I try to make the story make sense too. Thus far, I never was taken out of the moment of the story in games like Dragon Age 2 or Mass Effect. Maybe its just me, I don't know, but that is why I find this complaint to be somewhat deficent. So it could just be personal taste, but it doesn't make it invalid either. The last part irks me the most, because the overall attitude is that its incompatible with roleplaying, which I find to be even more ignorant. 

It is not a question about it being more or more restrictive, it is a question about how the mechanics were set up. If the point is to tell a narrative, a story and have characters populating it for you to interact with, then the restrictions were always there. If you feel that voiced protagonists are more confining, then thats your perogative. I just see it as an evolution of their mechanics after 14 years. 

Again, this is illogical, for the same reason. To say that because the player character is restrained that it doesn't matter that they are restrained more, but, again, that's riduculous. And again, every character in every RPG is retrained in some matter, even in P&P. You still have to follow the rules and you're still largely trying to play out the story that the GM is giving you.

And again, if in your mind it's okay to restrain and restrict the character even more just because they are to some degree, then when and where does this end? Taking away gender? Taking away face customisation? Taking away class choices? Taking away dialogue choices? When we get to this point, we are starting to get into the territory of Uncharted, Batman AA/AC, Assassin's Creed, etc. which are not RPGs at all, but just story-driven action games.

And I'm not saying it's incompatible with roleplaying, but that it restricts it, and when roleplaying a character I want as much control as I can have over it. A voice-protagonist restricts this: that is a pure and simple fact. We can't define our character's voices and mannerisms or even opinions as much in a game like DA2 compared to DAO because the game tells us who this character is and gives us a limited range of options. The dialogue wheel also reduces player agency and roleplaying, and when combined they result in limited choices and responses as a whole. A voiced protagonist means more budget being spent on additional dialogue recording, and less choices as well as outcomes and responses from others. The wheel also limits the total dialogue choices to a set few and categorises them too much into "dialogue flavours" or "dialogue styles" etc.

And look at what else the voiced PC has given us with DA2 and ME3 that's irked a lot of people: too many long cutscenes taking precedence over dialogue choices, dialogue choices being cut entirely and limited to only a couple of extreme options and loads of autodialogue where your character speaks without any input from you. A voiced PC doesn't just restrict and limit roleplaying due to the fact they aren't as customisable, but also in that I don't have enough opportunities to alter or control the story. Again, DA2 and ME3 were horribly linear and constantly forcing players on the same rails in the end.

It comes down to this: the more control I have over a character, the more they are mine, the more invested I am and the more immersed I am. I don't play roleplaying games to play a set character, I play them to play somebody I can define myself as much as possible. That's largely the point of a roleplaying game. A voiced protagonist to me in a game like DA2 is like me going to my weekly P&P roleplaying every Wednesday, and instead of being able to choose what I want my character to say and how they say it, some other person comes along with me and stands there beside me, and every time I get a chance to speak he or she shows me a piece of paper with limited, set responses that aren't the whole line and only a vague summary, and then I point to one and he/she delivers the response in a way that I have no real idea about until it's already been said.

The voiced-protagonist is not an evolution, it's the opposite: a devolution. It's dumbing down the genre and limiting it. It's sacrificing one of the key principles and factors of what an RPG should be in order to facilitate a more cinematic experience, further indicating that BioWare doesn't want to make proper RPGs any more and cares more about cinematic design than player control, to the point where its overriding it and dominating it. Every BioWare game since EA took control has reduced player agency and control more and more. Mass Effect 3 was barely a roleplaying game at all, wrestling control away from the player at almost every turn. DA2 felt barely any better compared to DAO.

The fact that restriction is there in some form already doesn't not excuse further restriction. That's like saying because any one person can commit a crime, we can turn the whole world into a police state simply because there was a restriction in place in the first place. There are always restrictions and limitations in anything, but that is no reason to enforce more and suddenly say it doesn't matter because that first restiction excuses it.

[LinksOcarina]

Terror_K wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

I'm sorry, but I do not see this as illogical at all. I would normally do a ten page response but I got work in a half hour and I wasted my time arguing with some dude over Wasteland 2 just now, so I want to keep this brief.

Basically, my argument was that the character was always restrained, and that the voiced protagonist is an irrelevent complaint because of that. It doesn't matter if its restricted more or less, the point is it was restricted to begin with. Now, I know a lot of people say they can have wiggle room to role-play and make up responses and voices in their head. Thats great you can do that.

but it is irrelevent to the games design, which was always to tell a story. And since I am always a story driven person I try to make the story make sense too. Thus far, I never was taken out of the moment of the story in games like Dragon Age 2 or Mass Effect. Maybe its just me, I don't know, but that is why I find this complaint to be somewhat deficent. So it could just be personal taste, but it doesn't make it invalid either. The last part irks me the most, because the overall attitude is that its incompatible with roleplaying, which I find to be even more ignorant. 

It is not a question about it being more or more restrictive, it is a question about how the mechanics were set up. If the point is to tell a narrative, a story and have characters populating it for you to interact with, then the restrictions were always there. If you feel that voiced protagonists are more confining, then thats your perogative. I just see it as an evolution of their mechanics after 14 years. 

Again, this is illogical, for the same reason. To say that because the player character is restrained that it doesn't matter that they are restrained more, but, again, that's riduculous. And again, every character in every RPG is retrained in some matter, even in P&P. You still have to follow the rules and you're still largely trying to play out the story that the GM is giving you.

And again, if in your mind it's okay to restrain and restrict the character even more just because they are to some degree, then when and where does this end? Taking away gender? Taking away face customisation? Taking away class choices? Taking away dialogue choices? When we get to this point, we are starting to get into the territory of Uncharted, Batman AA/AC, Assassin's Creed, etc. which are not RPGs at all, but just story-driven action games.

And I'm not saying it's incompatible with roleplaying, but that it restricts it, and when roleplaying a character I want as much control as I can have over it. A voice-protagonist restricts this: that is a pure and simple fact. We can't define our character's voices and mannerisms or even opinions as much in a game like DA2 compared to DAO because the game tells us who this character is and gives us a limited range of options. The dialogue wheel also reduces player agency and roleplaying, and when combined they result in limited choices and responses as a whole. A voiced protagonist means more budget being spent on additional dialogue recording, and less choices as well as outcomes and responses from others. The wheel also limits the total dialogue choices to a set few and categorises them too much into "dialogue flavours" or "dialogue styles" etc.

And look at what else the voiced PC has given us with DA2 and ME3 that's irked a lot of people: too many long cutscenes taking precedence over dialogue choices, dialogue choices being cut entirely and limited to only a couple of extreme options and loads of autodialogue where your character speaks without any input from you. A voiced PC doesn't just restrict and limit roleplaying due to the fact they aren't as customisable, but also in that I don't have enough opportunities to alter or control the story. Again, DA2 and ME3 were horribly linear and constantly forcing players on the same rails in the end.

It comes down to this: the more control I have over a character, the more they are mine, the more invested I am and the more immersed I am. I don't play roleplaying games to play a set character, I play them to play somebody I can define myself as much as possible. That's largely the point of a roleplaying game. A voiced protagonist to me in a game like DA2 is like me going to my weekly P&P roleplaying every Wednesday, and instead of being able to choose what I want my character to say and how they say it, some other person comes along with me and stands there beside me, and every time I get a chance to speak he or she shows me a piece of paper with limited, set responses that aren't the whole line and only a vague summary, and then I point to one and he/she delivers the response in a way that I have no real idea about until it's already been said.

The voiced-protagonist is not an evolution, it's the opposite: a devolution. It's dumbing down the genre and limiting it. It's sacrificing one of the key principles and factors of what an RPG should be in order to facilitate a more cinematic experience, further indicating that BioWare doesn't want to make proper RPGs any more and cares more about cinematic design than player control, to the point where its overriding it and dominating it. Every BioWare game since EA took control has reduced player agency and control more and more. Mass Effect 3 was barely a roleplaying game at all, wrestling control away from the player at almost every turn. DA2 felt barely any better compared to DAO.

The fact that restriction is there in some form already doesn't not excuse further restriction. That's like saying because any one person can commit a crime, we can turn the whole world into a police state simply because there was a restriction in place in the first place. There are always restrictions and limitations in anything, but that is no reason to enforce more and suddenly say it doesn't matter because that first restiction excuses it.

Your last point is a false argument, because in the end this is a restriction always in place that has never changed with that one exception. That does not equal the devolution of something or restrict role-playing, in the mechanical sense. And since this entire argument is subjective to begin with, nothing said here is really objective except the way the mechanics are set up.

But this is getting nowhere, frankly, i'm surprised you, Sylvus, Fisto and the rest haven't booed my facist ideals from this forum yet, but I really don't have the energy to continue debating the same point since it's a circular argument in the end with three people who think alike.

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 30 août 2012 - 01:53 .

[jillabender]

LinksOcarina wrote…

Your last point is a false argument, because in the end this is a restriction always in place that has never changed with that one exception. That does not equal the devolution of something or restrict role-playing, in the mechanical sense. And since this entire argument is subjective to begin with, nothing said here is really objective except the way the mechanics are set up.

But this is getting nowhere, frankly, i'm surprised you, Sylvus, Fisto and the rest haven't booed my facist ideals from this forum yet, but I really don't have the energy to continue debating the same point since it's a circular argument in the end with three people who think alike.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I fully appreciate that you feel that most of the changes made in DA2 improved your experience, or at least didn't take away from it, and there's no need for you to apologize for feeling that way.

Personally, having a voiced protagonist with a dialogue wheel and paraphrases did feel like a big change for me. Having the freedom to imagine my character's tone, intention, and demeanour was one of the things I loved about DA:O, and I couldn't help but miss that in DA2.

However, I recognize that's my subjective experience – nothing more and nothing less. The fact that other people had similar experiences doesn't in itself make my experience more valid or "objective" than anyone else's. I do tend to look at the way people articulate their experiences with a critical (but hopefully friendly :happy:) eye, but I'm not critical of their experiences as such – I'm critical when it comes to how clearly people express those experiences. If I seem to be challenging someone, it's because I want to understand them more clearly.

Again, I can't speak for anyone else, but when I talk about the mechanics of the game, my intention is only to share how they affected my own experience of the game and to compare that with the experiences of other players. Sometimes I muse about what it would take to make a certain aspect of the game work for me, but those musings aren't intended as demands.

My intention is never to make absolute judgments about the pros and cons of various game mechanics, because I'm not sure that's really possible. I think we would both agree that DA2 uses different mechanics from DA:O, but the way those mechanics affect the experience of the game will be a bit different for every player.

I believe Sylvius when he says that the mechanics of DA2 prevent him from approaching the game in a certain way, because I had a similar experience, and I also believe you when you say that they don't take anything away from your experience of the game.

I apologize if I seem to be rambling on for no reason – I only felt the need to explain myself because I detected some frustration in your post, and, because I remembered responding to some of your posts recently, I was concerned that I might have offended you. If I did, I apologize – that wasn't my intention.

Modifié par jillabender, 30 août 2012 - 02:53 .

[chunkyman]

the OPTION for a silent protagonist and full text dialogue. Without that, I won't be purchasing it.