298 réponses à ce sujet

[batlin]

Emzamination wrote...

You can talk to your companions any time you like but once you have exhausted all conversational options, the game reverts to a loop, no different than Origins.

Please give an example of what traps you're referring to.

Seeing as how no one knew exactly what Anders had planned their first playthrough, why do you believe your hawke should suddenly be able stop him on subsequent playthroughs based on your knowlege of events? That's akin to cheating don't you think? certainly not what a true rpg gamer should aspire to.

To be honest, we don't know exactly what the repercussions of hawke's actions will be as we never got that far.

Nope. In DA:O you can talk to companions immediately after relevant events about them. In DA2, oftentimes you have to wait years in-game before you can bring something up. And you really didn't know what Anders was planning, or at the very least didn't know that he wasn't up to anything good? Anders, a guy who had made it clear to all but the blind, deaf and dumb that he thought a war betwen mages and Templars was coming and who has already been shown to be murderously vengeful, comes to you about breaking into the Chantry and he will not tell you why? You truly didn't think it was somewhat fishy? And yes, we DON'T see the repercussions of Hawke's actions. That's because everything that we're presented with shows in no unsure terms that the end result is the same. Simply assuming that things might be different isn't good enough

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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."

Fine, but on that I will end with this: As Nathan Drake you follow a script that you cannot diverge from. In (most) RPGs, you can decide your own character's lines and actions are within the script. Control over that, in my opinion and in the textbook definition of RPGs, is what roleplaying is.

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.

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 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?

And yes. More content is almost always > less content.

Modifié par batlin, 13 septembre 2012 - 07:17 .

[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.

[Maria Caliban]

Emzamination wrote...

Seeing as how no one knew exactly what Anders had planned their first playthrough, why do you believe your hawke should suddenly be able stop him on subsequent playthroughs based on your knowlege of events?

He's a mage losing his mind to a spirit of Vengeance who asks for help gathering sulfur and saltpeter. I knew he was going to blow something up, but I didn't know the exact target.

Alternatively, Hawke has watched Anders break down for years. It's obvious that something is up, and even if she doesn't know his exact plans, she should know that a volatile mage is a danger to everyone around them. You know, what with the hundred or so mages around Kirkwall she has to put down.

Vengeance attempts to murder an innocent woman in front of the entire group! If a friend of yours took out a fireaxe and chased a woman down the street, would you just shrug and hope he works out his emotional issues?

If he later killed a group of people could you honestly say you didn't see it coming?

batlin wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

Too vague. Such as?

Such as how you can only talk to your friends when the plot says you can. Such as how you are forced to walk into obvious traps. Such as how you are forced to wait around for disasters to happen even though it's clear what will happen years beforehand. Such as how you can do nothing to prevent a certain person from committing a certain crime even though it's plainly obvious he's an unhinged murderer. Such as how no matter what you choose for the "big choice" at the very end, the result is exactly the same.

One and two both have a long and varied history in RPGs.

I recall in BG 2, companions would initiate romance dialogs within a random timeframe and that was the only time you could move the romance forward. The developers tried to make it so the dialog only triggered in 'safe' spots but one time I was rushing to attack a shadow dragon when the romance music started playing, my character stopped, and the winged-elf girl decided she wanted to flirt with me.

I'm pretty sure that if you look at every BioWare game, they each have their own problems when it comes to chatting with companions, whether this be 'you can only talk with them at camp' or 'you can run through their dialogue and have to constantly check back with them to see if something new is available.'

Three, four, and five are both more specific to Dragon Age 2, but I'd argue that they're not a result of cinematics. In Dragon Age: Origins, you had to become a Grey Warden (many players didn't like being forced into that role) and you had to journey around the country getting treaties (many players thought it would make more sense to meet up with the Grey Wardens at the border) and no matter what you do the Archdemon dies.

The problem is that the story of Dragon Age: Origins makes it look like whatever is happening is your PC's idea. The game gives them motivation, a solid goal, and lets them achieve it. In DA 2, your goal isn't that solid and even if Hawke wants to keep the peace, she's going to fail in the end.

Lack of choice isn't so bad when you're sharing in the PC's victory, but it becomes a problem when you share in the PC's defeat.

If Leandra was the Warden's mother, we'd have no choice but to track down the killer and save her in the nick of time. As Hawke, we have no choice but to not track down the killer and fail to save her.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 13 septembre 2012 - 08:11 .

[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 .

[thats1evildude]

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.

[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.

[Maria Caliban]

Having to talk to them at their home base is directly related to wanting a cinematic experience.

1) They wanted the companions to interact with objects in the environment. Merrill stares at her mirror. Isabela drinks from her shot glass. Aveline fiddles with the roster.

Even if you don't like environment specific conversations in general, they make sense given the characters. Aveline is going to spend her days in the guard office and if the PC wants to chat with her, it's a good a place as any. Fenris and Anders both hide out in their dens and are probably far more comfortable opening up there, especially as Fenris gets drunk first.

There are some conversations that make sense anywhere, but there are also some conversations which work better in a specific location.

2) The camera is derpy. If you want to close up on someone's face to show their expression and then pull back to a mid-shot for some body language, it's much easier to do in a known environment than an unknown one where the camera might end up in the wall.

Really, someone ought to make a smarter in-game camera. I mean, they have cars that can back themselves out of the driveway and machines that can vacuum an entire room for you. As much as BioWare loves its dynamic conversations, it might be worth it.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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....

My original assertion was spesifically directed to BioWare games. Not games in general. Short game length per playthrough in BioWare games  isn't suffice to make any meaningful decisions due to the nature of your linear story driven RPG. You have brought up your own Baldur Gate for example.

But bringing up Fallout as example to refute my claim is irrelevant when you don't  make this kind of games.

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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

Yes I would like that very much, thank you, but would your story linearity allow that much?

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 13 septembre 2012 - 09:17 .

[Sacred_Fantasy]

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.

You mean after ACT 2 or ACT 3? Can you exhausted all dialogue options in ACT I? I don't think so.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Even if you don't like environment specific conversations in general, they make sense given the characters. Aveline is going to spend her days in the guard office and if the PC wants to chat with her, it's a good a place as any. Fenris and Anders both hide out in their dens and are probably far more comfortable opening up there, especially as Fenris gets drunk first.

Of course they make sense and that's good. What didn't make sense is loop talk after few short dialogue lines. For example, Aveline's "I'll see you later."  and nothing more no matter how many times you visited her office unless you complete one of the main plots. As the result,  I couldn't care less to visit the companions but focus on completing all main quest without ever triggering their personal quest even if I have enough friendship points to do so.   

Maria Caliban wrote...

There are some conversations that make sense anywhere, but there are also some conversations which work better in a specific location.

Yes. The problem is DA 2 companion's dialogue was stuck at their envrronment and never move to anywhere  which is not a problem for DAO's camp fire.  And therefore their conversations also as dull as their environment. How on earth could you ever converse privately and romantically in a noisy tavern like The Hangman or Anders' Clinic?
 

[batlin]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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

My mistake. Point is I never said it was a flaw of the game's engine for the lack of freedom.

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.

Yeah, but at the cost of the player's freedom? Is it really worth it? This is pretty much my thesis statement on how cinematics too often takes precedence over choice.

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?

DA:O found a good median.

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

Again, nothing to do with the engine.

Modifié par batlin, 13 septembre 2012 - 09:40 .

[batlin]

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.

For instance you can have a romantic encounter with Fenris who storms away, and not be able to bring it up until the next act.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Three, four, and five are both more specific to Dragon Age 2, but I'd argue that they're not a result of cinematics. In Dragon Age: Origins, you had to become a Grey Warden (many players didn't like being forced into that role) and you had to journey around the country getting treaties (many players thought it would make more sense to meet up with the Grey Wardens at the border) and no matter what you do the Archdemon dies. 

The problem is that the story of Dragon Age: Origins makes it look like whatever is happening is your PC's idea. The game gives them motivation, a solid goal, and lets them achieve it. In DA 2, your goal isn't that solid and even if Hawke wants to keep the peace, she's going to fail in the end.

The problem is Hawke fail everytime and not only in the end. I already knew Hawke cannot stop the war thanks to Varric and Cassandra. So the end failure never actually bother me much. What bother me is Hawke failure to protect his family, quickly disregard her family tragedies and never actually influenced, reflected and developed by those events. Her inability to forsee the dangers and prevent that from happening is un-excuseable. She knew Kirkwall is not a safe place for her family right from the beginning and what did she does? Instead of staying low, she eagerly did the opposite way. Trying to be famous, completely disregard whether she is illegal apostate of having one of illegal apostate in the family. To me, she purposely planned her own failure and that's not my kind of story.

Maria Caliban wrote...

Lack of choice isn't so bad when you're sharing in the PC's victory, but it becomes a problem when you share in the PC's defeat.

No one will easily admit defeat.   

Maria Caliban wrote...


If Leandra was the Warden's mother, we'd have no choice but to track down the killer and save her in the nick of time. As Hawke, we have no choice but to not track down the killer and fail to save her.

The question is why there isn't a choice in the first place? Why is it hard to make a choice in a simple task like tracking down the killer? 

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 13 septembre 2012 - 10:33 .

[brushyourteeth]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Having to talk to them at their home base is directly related to wanting a cinematic experience.

1) They wanted the companions to interact with objects in the environment. Merrill stares at her mirror. Isabela drinks from her shot glass. Aveline fiddles with the roster.

Even if you don't like environment specific conversations in general, they make sense given the characters. Aveline is going to spend her days in the guard office and if the PC wants to chat with her, it's a good a place as any. Fenris and Anders both hide out in their dens and are probably far more comfortable opening up there, especially as Fenris gets drunk first.

There are some conversations that make sense anywhere, but there are also some conversations which work better in a specific location.

2) The camera is derpy. If you want to close up on someone's face to show their expression and then pull back to a mid-shot for some body language, it's much easier to do in a known environment than an unknown one where the camera might end up in the wall.

Really, someone ought to make a smarter in-game camera. I mean, they have cars that can back themselves out of the driveway and machines that can vacuum an entire room for you. As much as BioWare loves its dynamic conversations, it might be worth it.

This post is full of win.

Having a gag order on your companions when you're out exploring with them is awkward (I know at least Merrill would likely be nervously prattling to try to break up the tension in the Deep Roads expedition) though the party banter hid that away somewhat.

The devs do have the above reasons for saving important conversations for "home", but I think it would be neat every now and then to have the chance to have a discussion with a companion about something to do with the quest you're on, or the environment you're in. Even if that has to happen at a specific "checkpoint" as well.

I realize that would fall under the category of "cinematic", but I'm not against cinematics -- just the notion that control should be taken away from the player in favor of scenes that are visually impressive.

Modifié par brushyourteeth, 13 septembre 2012 - 01:53 .

[Nomen Mendax]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Three, four, and five are both more specific to Dragon Age 2, but I'd argue that they're not a result of cinematics. In Dragon Age: Origins, you had to become a Grey Warden (many players didn't like being forced into that role) and you had to journey around the country getting treaties (many players thought it would make more sense to meet up with the Grey Wardens at the border) and no matter what you do the Archdemon dies.

 

Unless you lose the final battle and refuse to reload the game, not that I know anyone who is that hardcore.

[brushyourteeth]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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?

I think because we're not game developers and only game players, it's tougher for us to see the potential payback in exploring cinematics than it might be for you. What those of us who have played RPG's for years and loved DA:O saw was our dialogue options drop from sometimes six or seven varied and specific choices to only three, which were voice acted by someone who didn't necessarily convey the emotion we would have liked, through a paraphrase and emotion icon system that often poorly represented the spirit of the dialogue's true outcome/intent, and which sometimes took the character's responses completely out of our control. And all of this when we feel we could have imagined that character's manner and response much better than it was cinematically done.

That's some of us. Some players love hearing Hawke speak and watching her react to the world around her. If I'm honest, I don't mind the VA or the cinematics that come with it -- I'm bitter that I now have fewer dialogue options and very little idea what any of the three I do have actually mean, as they're so confusingly labeled and sometimes inappropriately voice acted.

But, Mr. Gaider's said before that part of the "only three options" schtick is due to the spread of dialogue over the friendship/rivalry meter, and that means DAIII will be different. It's not so much that we don't believe cinematics have any promise - just that so far, for many of us, the increase in cinematics have only served to do what we were already doing and not nearly as well.

I will say, I think the "dominant tone" is to blame for a lot of the heat against cinematics, whether you'd include it as a cinematic or not. It removed the option for us to be loving with our family but harsh against d-bags. If you were a jerk to templars, you were forced to be a jerk to mages equally - the game saw no difference and took that control out of our hands, thereby redefining a character we'd spent 20-30 hours trying to craft. Do the tones have promise? Definitely - we just didn't get to see them at their best in their DAII debut.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...


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.

It was a bit annoying in DAO to accidentally click on a follower during combat and have the conversation/dialog screen pop up, so I can see the point of conversations in bases. on the other hand why not let us talk when wandering around in a city like Denerim market where there is no combat?

Maybe a medium solution where we can only talk to them in their home base but we can initiate a conversation whenever we visit them, not just when they have something new to say.

Or diable conversations while in combat maybe?

[batlin]

Shinian2 wrote...

It was a bit annoying in DAO to accidentally click on a follower during combat and have the conversation/dialog screen pop up,

That had never once happened to me. I didn't even know it was possible to start a conversation during combat in DA:O...

[nightscrawl]

brushyourteeth wrote...

I will say, I think the "dominant tone" is to blame for a lot of the heat against cinematics, whether you'd include it as a cinematic or not. It removed the option for us to be loving with our family but harsh against d-bags. If you were a jerk to templars, you were forced to be a jerk to mages equally - the game saw no difference and took that control out of our hands, thereby redefining a character we'd spent 20-30 hours trying to craft. Do the tones have promise? Definitely - we just didn't get to see them at their best in their DAII debut.

Couldn't agree more.

[Malsumis]

Couldn't agree more with the OP.

The 'cinematic experience' is a bane on current RPGs. Yes it looks good, but not at the cost of branching pathways, role play, customization and replay ability. They are the meat of RPGs.

The ideal design philosophy for RPGs is something Warren Spector said. "Let the player tell me their story". Or another quote "Sharing authorship with the player is ‘the sweet spot".

[Fast Jimmy]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

Three, four, and five are both more specific to Dragon Age 2, but I'd argue that they're not a result of cinematics. In Dragon Age: Origins, you had to become a Grey Warden (many players didn't like being forced into that role) and you had to journey around the country getting treaties (many players thought it would make more sense to meet up with the Grey Wardens at the border) and no matter what you do the Archdemon dies.

 

Unless you lose the final battle and refuse to reload the game, not that I know anyone who is that hardcore.

You obviously don't know Sylvius the Mad, then.

[Fast Jimmy]

batlin wrote...

Shinian2 wrote...

It was a bit annoying in DAO to accidentally click on a follower during combat and have the conversation/dialog screen pop up,

That had never once happened to me. I didn't even know it was possible to start a conversation during combat in DA:O...

Its not. 

Maybe Shinian2 was thinking of sneaking around or areas that had enemies nearby to fight? 

But no... you could not start a conversation while in combat.

[Fast Jimmy]

Malsumis wrote...

Couldn't agree more with the OP.

The 'cinematic experience' is a bane on current RPGs. Yes it looks good, but not at the cost of branching pathways, role play, customization and replay ability. They are the meat of RPGs.

The ideal design philosophy for RPGs is something Warren Spector said. "Let the player tell me their story". Or another quote "Sharing authorship with the player is ‘the sweet spot".

Or, my personal favorite quote in how to design/write an RPG:

"It’s been my experience that the best recommendation for a video game writer is that they have a background in running tabletop roleplaying games. I have some theories as to why that is – essentially I think it’s because someone who’s only experienced in writing prose has a very linear thought process. They write for a passive audience, creating scenes with characters that are always their own. A tabletop GM “writes” for characters that belong to their players, and are accustomed to dealing with the fact that these characters do unexpected things. They’re accustomed to accommodating their players’ creative needs rather than just their own, and tend to have an easier time wrapping their heads around the way that game dialogue branches – as opposed to your typical prose writer who has a very specific “voice” in mind for their player and whose dialogue branches fall apart when the player deviates from the path they had in mind.

That may be my personal bias coming into play, however. I did (and do – though less today than back in those halcyon, carefree days where I did this stuff just for fun) a lot of tabletop GM’ing, from my early days in D&D to Shadowrun (which is still my favorite) and Earthdawn, and even a brief flirtation with White Wolf games. That didn’t necessarily make me a better writer so much as a better designer – but in the case of a game writer you need to be both in order to succeed."

http://greywardens.c...gaider-part-2/] Said in the interview here.[/url]

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 13 septembre 2012 - 02:31 .

[Nomen Mendax]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

Three, four, and five are both more specific to Dragon Age 2, but I'd argue that they're not a result of cinematics. In Dragon Age: Origins, you had to become a Grey Warden (many players didn't like being forced into that role) and you had to journey around the country getting treaties (many players thought it would make more sense to meet up with the Grey Wardens at the border) and no matter what you do the Archdemon dies.

 

Unless you lose the final battle and refuse to reload the game, not that I know anyone who is that hardcore.

You obviously don't know Sylvius the Mad, then.

*laughs*, now I wish I'd written: "except maybe Sylvius" at the end of my post.

[Beerfish]

A couple of points:

1) The op is correct. Thus the best rpg of all time, hands down, no question at all is NWN.
2) If a game is not designed like NWN giving the player and player creators all that freedom (Like 99.9% of all games) then cinematics are a very important story telling device.