25 réponses à ce sujet

[batlin]

Cinematics shouldn't take precedence over the player's options. Developer-controlled pacing shouldn't take precedence over the player's control of the pacing. A video game could probably never provide the freedom a tabletop game can, but that doesn't mean it's pointless to try.

If a game is supposed to be more like an action movie and less like an RPG, make a game like Uncharted where every second is a scripted event and where no player input ultimately matters aside from failure or success. Don't make an "RPG" that gives us few options and an uncompelling plot just so it will feel like a movie.


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MOD Edit: I don't want to outright remove Batlin's words, but a comment to those new to this thread that this discussion is NOT about the specifics of "what makes an RPG" and said posts will be deleted/edited to prevent the discussion from derailing along those lines.

Modifié par batlin, 14 septembre 2012 - 06:40 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Straight up telling other people that their perspective of what an RPG should be about is wrong (and essentially, that's what you're doing here) never ends well.

In general I have no problems if people talk about what it is they like about the genre and what types of games and mechanics within the genre that they feel are good and bad.

For the record, I like a lot of RPGs with cinematics, and don't feel they take away from the game. I also do not feel that cinematics and player agency are mutually exclusive. Player agency and an increased focused on in game character skills are among things I highly value in RPGs. This doesn't mean I feel that being forced to do something at a point in the game or allowing varying degrees of player skill take away from whether or not a game is an RPG.


Let it be known that this thread is already on thin ice if people can't be civil and respect that other people have different things they like about RPGs.

[Allan Schumacher]

Firstly, the definition of an "RPG" is there in the name. If you have less choice and less freedom, you also have less ability to roleplay. This isn't a matter of opinion, this is how the RPG genre is.

This is a futile argument and not one I'm about to get into, since it's been done ad nauseum and goes no where. Continuing along this line WILL see this thread get closed. The term "Role playing game" is so ambiguous that people can (and will) literally state that in Uncharted you're playing the role of Nathan Drake. It always requires further clarification for what it exactly means to "roleplay."

Imagine, if you will, that you're playing a tabletop RPG, and you decide that you must follow an informant because you believe he may have lied to you and you want to see who he reports to. Unfortunately, the DM says you can't do that. You ask him why, and he says it's because it would be so much cooler if you went along with it as if you didn't think the informant was lying.

See what I mean?

Now this is actually more interesting. Though, this actually has nothing to do with the cinematic nature of the games and everything to do with the inherent restrictions that come with being forced to design all of your content before the player plays it, with the exceptionally limited ability to branch out the story arc without running into divergence issues. We're not just providing a tabletop D&D experience for Batlin to experience, but we're providing the same tabletop D&D experience for millions of players to experience and it has to be fully created and experienced before any of the players start doing anything in game. I imagine it'd be like concurrently DMing a million-plus people playing different iterations of the same campaign.

In addition, there's nothing stopping an Infinity Engine game from doing precisely what you just described, and it in fact happens on a regular basis in the BioWare and Black Isle games that use the engine. All you're really asking for here is better writing to properly convey the illusion of choice that exists to prevent excessive divergence in the game. At it's simplest I could infer it as an argument for "I'd like more content in my game" since that's really what limits such things.

The other alternative (which I think is very interesting), would be to create a significantly shorter game (in playthrough length) and allow a much stronger breadth of options. This would keep total time in game high, but requires replaying the game in order to accomplish it. Some like Gabe Newell feel that's a waste of resources since many (most?) players will only see a fraction of the content you actually put into the game.

[Allan Schumacher]

Options are better than cutscenes. Cutscenes are nice. Please make pretty ones and insert them into a game in places where options aren't viable (like the Battle of Ostagar). Otherwise, I would like some options, please. If there are more cutscenes and auto-dialogue than there are options, I will enjoy the game less. That's just a fact. I am only one person. That's also a fact. No one has to cater to my preferences, but there they are all the same. Take 'em or leave 'em.

Hmmm, maybe I'm tripping on the terminology used. For starters, every single conversation in the Dragon Age games is effectively a cutscene. The game engine cannot differentiate between the two. It's just that a great many of them are done with rapid development with simply using a default stage and setting gestures and specifying gestures and things like that. So when I see things like "cinematics," I'm thinking about a LOT more than just the longer movie like sequences in the game.

I don't think these extra states are going to result in any significant divergence. But, and here is the problem with cinematic presentation, they do all need their own cut-scenes. It gets more expensive once you include a voiced protagonist becasue presumably they will want to speak at the funeral of any companion that dies which means multiple dialogue options.

You're right, that isn't particularly divergent, and it's a lot of what we did.

Having said that, we've already shown we're willing to invest in the cinematics for things that can be quite different. It's still possible to leverage a lot of the same assets and so forth, but if you've played ME3 just imagine all the ways that you can resolve Tuchanka. I think there's a powerful thing about "show don't tell," and perhaps it's because I've grown up with more visual entertainment modes than just books but reading the text description of Dupre sacrificing himself to save the Avatar in Serpent Isle is not as intense of a scene as Mordin screamin "I MADE A MISTAKE!" when confronting a renegade Shepard.

There are so many nuances to how those scenes can play out, that it is probably one of my favourite gaming moments of all time, and it's done with some exceptionally well crafted cinematics that do nothing but add to it in my opinion. It really helps with bringing an emotional response out of me and that's such an amazing feeling for me as a gamer.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

If the game length is shorter than let say, 20 hours per play then Gabe Newell is right. That fraction of the content you see is too short to make any meaningful decision ingame.  

I emphatically disagree since Fallout is actually a pretty short game and you can make boatloads of decisions with meaning within that time frame.

A game like Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, is significantly longer but offers much less choice with any real meaning.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

That's the thing. You guys don't make open-world games with boatloads of meaningful decisions either short length or long length. Not anymore. Instead you guys believe in strict linear story, complete railroading and tons of meaningless illusion of choices that make even games like Baldur Gate have to be played longer.  So can you guys at least try to develop system to allow multi-ways to complete a task in your story driven RPG? 

I'm sorry, you're definitely going to need to elaborate the "that's the thing" since I don't see how your post here is in any way relevant to your original assertion that Gabe is correct if the game is less than 20 hours, while I post an example that refutes it.

Unless you had originally decided to post something that you knowingly didn't believe was true as a fact....


Or were you just wanting to state that you'd like us to provide more alternatives to task completition going forward?

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 13 septembre 2012 - 05:57 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I think having a nice amount of choice illusion is very important. One thing that would have made a difference in some instances in DA2 would have been a different NPC verbal response per choice, even if the actual result is the same.

There's a lot of things we can do better with DA2 in terms of player agency, I agree.

Also, regarding illusion of choice, it's still important to actually have some actual genuine choice as well.

[Allan Schumacher]

Again, I understand that cinematics and freedom are not mutually exclusive and I do not think the infinity engine is somehow responsible for the lack of freedom in DA2.

The Infinity Engine was the engine that ran games like Baldur's Gate.

The issue is that it would take far more work to make, say, four wildly different player choices "cinematic" than it would to make four wildly different player choices not-as-cinematic. Since all games have a limited amount of resources, a choice therefore must be made whether the amount of choices will be hindered by making those choices look cool. Am I wrong?

Eh, within the context of your example, it's probably not as much work as you may think as there's many things that can entail "follow the NPC" so I can think of solutions that wouldn't actually place as much burden on Cinematic design (moreso on level design). Ideally you don't actually use a cinematic to do the following part, but there may or may not be significantly unique cinematics that need to be required.


Having said that, you are correct that having cinematics does add a cost that otherwise wouldn't be there. The thing is though, I see the process as iterative. As we work with cinematics the systems and tools to support them will continue to grow as we innovate on them. To stop implementing them would halt that development and ensure that no progress with cinematics can entail.

I don't know. Are cinematics a rabbit hole that cannot possibly be put into a situation where they can be created more efficiently and more robustly that they can never provide what people like yourself look for in an RPG? Must the level of graphical detail be ambiguous enough that players are then able to interpolate the details of the actions?

If Mass Effect or Dragon Age are Infinity Engine games, are they as well received?

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 13 septembre 2012 - 07:52 .

[Allan Schumacher]

thats1evildude wrote...

batlin wrote...

Nope. In DA:O you can talk to companions immediately after relevant events about them. 

Like what? I never came up with anything I couldn't address with DA2's companions after personal quests.

I think the issue is more "You can talk to them anywhere and not have to be in their hideout."

I can see his point, though by the same token I don't have an issue about only being able to talk with party members about big stuff like this at their home base.

It's less of an issue for me personally.

[Allan Schumacher]

batlin wrote...

DA:O found a good median.

So we should just stop there?  When you say "median" it seems evident that in the end it was still a compromise.  Is a system that shows you nothing superior than a fully cinematic system that actually lets you do everything that you want to do?  Should we not strive for the latter simply because it's difficult to accomplish?

If Mass Effect or Dragon Age are Infinity Engine games, are they as well received?

Again, nothing to do with the engine.

I think the engine chosen very much impacts the type of game delivered, especially when it involves significant changes in the type of presentation.

[Allan Schumacher]

Well, you could try to work from the DA:O base rather just scrapping it and going for Mass Effect, but with less player control.

(At least Mass Effect gave you some control over your speech)

IMO adding a dialogue wheel is adding to the DA:O base, is it not? (Behind the scenes the engine treats conversations virtually the same in both games, with DA2 having improvements in the ease of rapid scene development and other little tweaks that we saw).

As an anecdote, the most frequent "complaint" (and they all said it was a minor one) with DAO amongst my friends was why we regressed in terms of how we presented the player in conversations. There ARE people that felt the lack of VO and dialogue wheel (especially among console players) was a let down in the game.

So is adding the wheel truly a "scrapping" of the (IMO already heavily cinematic) system of DAO?

[Allan Schumacher]

No, you shouldn't strive for the latter because unless your resources are infinite it means you have to skimp elsewhere in order to compensate for the focus on cinematics. Again, cinematics are not a bad thing, but when the player's freedom must suffer that greatly in order to make a more cinematic game, it's not ideal.

You don't require infinite resources to improve workflows and to create a cinematic experience that is cheaper than it is now, and more versatile. What you need is iteration. We are constantly adding support to allow the CinDes team to create better cinematics at a more efficient rate that allows them to do more things.

You may not realize it, but a line of thinking like this prevents innovation. It'd prevent the Infinity Engine from being developed. Heck, it'd literally prevent CRPGs from even being created, because a CRPG inherently restricts player freedom. You can only do in a game what is deterministically available in the source code.

There's a reason why the "true RPGers" appended a 'C' before RPG computer games back in the day. They weren't "real" RPG experiences, but we'll make sure to qualify that by saying they are "CRPGs" just so that no one gets entirely confused and mistakes them for actual RPGs.

Is the Lycium engine responsible for how DA2 looks overall? Because if so I'd have to disagree, DA2 looks horrible compared to DA:O. Colors are washed-out and character models look plastic.

But, again, that's beside the point. The issue at hand is how plot branching and the writing was handled, and to m knowledge neither of those are limited by the engine,

What you are capable of allowing the player to do in a game is intrinsically enabled by the engine (it may be important to note that an engine is much more than the graphics you see on the screen). You don't even see attack animations in older games, but I would be suspect if people didn't appreciate the full prerendered backgrounds and sprite animations that existed in Baldur's Gate and the Infinity Engine, especially if the alternative was a text based adventure.

It probably also serves to note that, it is now more expensive to create 2D sprite animations, and that cost shoots up manipulatively the more variation you allow for the player character. Why? Because 3D animation tools are more versatile and iteration has allowed the development processes to become much faster and significantly easier than they were in the past. This development came as a result of iteration on the workflows. 3D art wasn't always cheaper than 2D stuff.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 14 septembre 2012 - 05:18 .

[Allan Schumacher]

O really? please point out in your post above where you specified romance plots because I'm not seeing it.And even when talking about companion romances your still wrong, there is romantic dialogue for every romancable companion in every act, even 1.Give me a romance companion from any act and I'll give you a romance scene.There's alot you could've missed only playing through one time, expert.

Batlin isn't saying that you can go a whole act without having a romance subplot. If the player were to experience the romance subplot rather early in an Act though, nothing more in the romance subplot will really be reflected throughout the rest of the Act, and indeed until the the next passage of time.


The difference with DAO is that the romance plots were more self contained and not dependent on any particular state of any other plot. If you were to edit Morrigan's reputation with the player to a really high value, a player could effectively go through the entire romance before doing anything else in the game.

In DA2, the events were gated by the progress through the story. Though whether or not this is an actual issue I think is more personal preference. KOTOR was very similar in that progressing through the personal stories of your party members was gated by, if I'm not mistaken, the level of the player.



EDIT:  Of note:

Do try to make as much an attempt to keep up with our dialogue as you do to deliver that belligerent tone.

This is an ironic statement, as I'd consider it somewhat belligerent as well.  It's not necessary for something like this.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 14 septembre 2012 - 05:16 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Chiramu wrote...

If you want to go back to tabletop games than the ideal RPG for you has all actions in text on the screen.

Games have evolved since then OP. No one who plays video games wants to sit reading about what's happening, if you want to read about what's happening YOU'D READ A DAMN BOOK!

Get with the times OP.

Eh, a text based computer game is still going to have differences to just reading a book, so I don't think the analogy is entirely fair.

I am of the opinion, however, that computer games have always been a poor substitute for simulating a good PnP game experience though.

[Allan Schumacher]

Very well put. Personally, I prefer the DA:O approach, because being able to decide for myself when a relationship with a companion character (whether romantic or platonic) progresses to the next level gives me more freedom to define for myself the significance of the relationship to my character and to the overall story arc.

I can see the advantage of both things.

While I like player agency in my RPGs, one thing that I'm less keen to is the idea of entirely PC centric NPCs in the game. I like it when a game character like Aveline can perhaps behave in a way that isn't entirely fan servicey. She just wasn't interested.

While choice is good, complete narrative direction and the ability to control and influence other characters in game cheapens the game world in my perspective.

[Allan Schumacher]

Cstaf wrote...

That may be, but that does not mean that gaming company's shouldn't strive to simulate that experience. And that have been my problem with this direction change in the franchise all along, since Bioware is the only company, to my knowledge, that does (did?) that.

That depends I suppose on what one feels about tabletop D&D experiences.  Outside of perhaps the Baldur's Gate games, has BioWare really been a game that strives to simulate a tabletop D&D experience?  Heck, were the BG games really that?  I know they were based on D&D, but D&D has primarily been experienced via computer games for myself.

Also, why specifically should tabletop D&D be one thing that we strive for, but not something else?  Does this mean we should reincorporate multiplayer back into the games and effectively make the game a tabletop D&D client?

Given that many different people have very different goals when they play tabletop D&D (or other RPG systems) games, I think it's still a difficult thing to nail down.

[Allan Schumacher]

The problem is not only with dialogue wheel, but that it helped to dramaticly reduce the complexity of conversations. You can create a conversation that will not be primitive yes-no-maybe, but with the wheel you are limited to 6 options only, and in practice it'll be 5 as one wil be Investigate, that is jsut cosmetic and not affecting anything.

With the investigate you are functionally given 10 options (since the investigates are literally at the exact same point in the tree). It is akin to hitting "more..." in something like DAO, where I believe your limit of visible options for dialogue was actually specifically 5.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 14 septembre 2012 - 09:11 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Wulfram wrote...

They're not advertising the outcome, they're advertising the intent. Hawke knows when they're going to start a fight or offer money

To be fair, I don't think this is as clear as it could have been in DA2.  I do think we could do a better job of making it obvious that the icon represents the player character's intent, rather than the explicit consequence of the choice.

[Allan Schumacher]

eroeru wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Given that many different people have very different goals when they play tabletop D&D (or other RPG systems) games, I think it's still a difficult thing to nail down.

Games are a difficult thing to nail down. But saying "bah, it's difficult, so let's just concentrate on lowest common denominators" is "half-assing" it and making a game of lowly qualities.

I might be a bit unfair with this quotation, but that's the general vibe I've gotten from the current team.

No, I'm stating making a general comment of "games should be like tabletop D&D" means different things to different people.

So now we just made our game an elaborate multiplayer client to allow people to play tabletop D&D remotely.  Does this satisfy the criteria?  Yes.  Is this what you were actually asking for?  No.

Okay, well there's some guys at work that really like to roll the dice and do elaborate combats and micromanage XP allocation.  That satisifies the definition, but is it what you actually wanted?

There's another group that straight up doesn't award xp at all.  The DM basically just decides periodically "okay I think we've been through enough that we should now level up."  So we should strip out experience from Dragon Age and just have plot state progression award level ups now, correct?  It satisfies the definition, but is it what you were really asking for?


If we happen to pick the exact definition that you want, it's likely you will be happy and probably not conclude that it's a "lowest common denominator" decision.  If it's NOT one that you like, no matter it's validity, does it become a situation where you now interpret that we're just appealing to the lowest common demoninator then?

[Allan Schumacher]

Personally, I don't really see why we need a cutscene for conversations at all

I tend to enjoy it more.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Welsh Inferno wrote...

Roleplayability should take precedence over cinematics. I also thought Origins did it fantastically well. Not once did I feel like any of the cinematics were breaking immersion.

I did, actually.  I objected to the cutscenes that showed me events of which I shouldn't have been aware (basically ever cutscene with Loghain in it).  Plus, as mentioned, whenever the Warden's party moved durign a scene - I would have found it more acceptable if they'd been magically transported back to their initial positions when the scene was over.

Isn't it irrelevant whether or not Sylvius is aware, since your PC is still not aware?

[Allan Schumacher]

I understand it is not the case for all players since everyone does not try to roleplay a character which is molded outside of the game.

I think it's more of an issue of how people actually do their roleplaying. That I don't need the full line doesn't mean I do not know how to roleplay a character that is molded outside the game. Most of my characters are.

[Allan Schumacher]

How do you choose among dialogue options when you can't tell which options will contradict your character design?

I've always chosen my lines based on intent. Hence the wheel vs. full line tells me virtually the same thing.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I don't really understand what that means.

I tend to chose lines based on whether they're compatible with the character I've designed.  In a silent PC game, this is easy, because there's almost always some way to deliver one of the available that lines that suits my character.

With the paraphrases, I can't tell whether the lines will break my character, so I'm left guessing.

How does choosing based on intent work?  I honestly don't get it.  Perhaps an example would help.

And I'm just asking Allan.  Many people have said they choose based on intent, and I don't understand what that means.  Anyone who chooses lines based on intent could potentially answer this.

Say an NPC just betrayed my character, and upon being informed I get the full lines of dialogue such as:

1) I understand.  You did what you had to do.
2) I'm willing to let it go.  This time....
3) You will pay for what you did (Kill)

There's two ways I can do this.  Before reading my responses I can decide "How is my character feeling."  If I decide "pissed off" I will choose option 3.  Alternatively, I can look at the 3 options and decide "which of these options seems most appropriate for my character?"  (I do this the most)

If I were to use a dialogue wheel, the responses could be like this:

1) I understand.
2) I'm not impressed.
3) You will pay!

Now, option 3 is one where I can understand some people going 'Whoa whoa whoa, I didn't mean to kill him!" which is where an icon that depicts "I will kill this NPC" works for me.


There are times that I go "Hmmm, that wasn't quite what I expected" with the dialogue wheel just as there are times I go "lol evidently my character said that differently than I expected" with full lines.  It's a wash, and I find both cases are about equivalently rare.

[Allan Schumacher]

Eh, I'm dropping out of this conversation as it's already been beaten to death.

I was asked for an explanation and I gave it. I've already stated why "well he just misinterpreted it" doesn't work for me in other posts. It's just as jarring.