298 réponses à ce sujet

[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.

[Rylor Tormtor]

jillabender wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote…

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.

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 see the system and I understand the system used in DA2, but I think this is why there is the complaint of being disconnected from the world and characters. So much was invested in the Companion Home scenes and such that almost nothing bled out into the rest of game with the interactions. The homes were like Vegas, and we all know about what happens in Vegas. This may have happened a bit in DAO (namely that it felt like interaction with companions was seperated from the rest of the game, that is any increase/decrease/change in relationship was only evident in a very discreet space and not reflected in the wider game world), but it was mitigated by the fact that all the companions occupied a single interactive space (the camp) and it wasn't so spread out. No matter what your relationship with the compaions in DA2, they always acted the same outside (except for some context specific banter, such as Fenris and Anders after the Tranquil Solution quest), and that is where you spent most of your time. So, if your interactions with the companions have no effect on their behavior in the wider world, it is easy to feel l disconnected from them (of course there are certain key points where companion relationships mattered in the story - end of Act 2 and Act 3 and such, which is nice, but I feel it didn't make up for the general lack). 

Also, DAO had little things as far as romances go that made them seem like an ongoing thing (reactions for flirting options from LI's and such). You could also play hide the Mabari with Morrigan any time you went back camp. Was it silly? Yes, but it did at least give the perception of an ongoing relationship.

[Fredward]

Subjectivity, subjectivity everywhere.

[jillabender]

Emzamination wrote…

As far as your post goes: You're not really showing me a difference in the two systems.In Dragon age origins (Without cheating) you have to wait until the relationship bar hits a certain point to activate new conversation topics and once those are exhausted, the romance dialogue enters a repeating loop.

In Dragon age 2 you must wait until the Friendship/rivalry bar hits a certain point to activate new conversation and once those topics are exhausted the dialogue enters the same loop, with the only difference being it's not as confrontational.

As far as waiting whole acts for new material goes, that's nothing new, I'll remind you that romances with alistair, morrigan and zevran required certain main story missions to be completed before they could be completed, with Alistair and zevran taking the entire game.

It's true that you had to visit the Circle Tower and find a certain item before Morrigan's romance progressed beyond a certain point. Similarly, Alistair's romance would not progress beyond a certain point until the party traveled to Redcliffe, and Zevran's romance could not be completed until the encounter with Taliesin once the Landsmeet was convened.

However, I still think it's fair to say that DA:O offers more variability in terms of the timing of crucial conversations with companion characters. For example, it's possible to get the revelation about Alistair's parentage, unlocking his companion quest, either shortly after Ostagar, or much later in the game, depending on when the PC goes to Redcliffe. Similarly, the player can unlock, and complete, Morrigan's companion quest quite early in the game, or much later, and the same is true for Leliana.

I can see the advantages of both approaches – BioWare seems to have wanted in DA2 to give Hawke's relationship with each companion a tightly focused story arc, with a very clearly defined beginning, middle and end, and I can appreciate that. Personally, though, I prefer the greater flexibility of DA:O's approach. But that's just me.

Modifié par jillabender, 14 septembre 2012 - 02:24 .

[Face of Evil]

Leliana's romance could not be completed without dealing with Marjolaine, one way or the other.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 14 septembre 2012 - 06:31 .

[zyntifox]

Yrkoon wrote...

Ok, since it's been said twice on this very page, I'm gonna go ahead and focus on it. 

People keep saying they want some "middle ground" between DA2 and DA:O.  But I suspect that you guys really haven't thought this through, because such a notion doesn't make sense.  The vast majority of the two games' features are mutually exclusive  and  a "middle ground" can't be negotiated  (see: voiced vs. silent protagonist.  And for that matter, art styles).  Or maybe you have thought this through .  If so, then by all means,    Please describe  this so-called  "middle ground" you want.

As for me, screw the middle ground.  There's nothing in DA2 that  I'd want in the next Dragon age. 

There is actually one thing i want from DA2 that wasn't in DA:O, which if you play on the console i think you would agree with. The move-to-point command. That made implementing tactics  in combat in DA2 a lot easier in certain situations. However, there were about ten other changes in DA2's combat that made tactical combat impossible.

[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.

[jillabender]

Face of Evil wrote...

Leliana's romance could not be completed without dealing with Marjolaine, one way or the other.

That's entirely true. However, the player could deal with Marjolaine at any point in the game – Leliana's companion quest was self-contained, as Allan put it, and did not depend on any plot events beyond Leliana's approval level.

[zyntifox]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

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.

[jillabender]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

I'm all for characters who behave in non fan-servicey ways. When I say that I want to have the freedom to define the significance of my character's relationships for myself, I'm definitely not saying that I want my character to have more control and influence over other characters in the game. I agree that characters should have minds of their own, as opposed to being PC-centric.

What I enjoy about DA:O is having greater freedom to define for myself how my character is affected and changed as a person by his or her relationships with the companion characters. I enjoyed the character interactions in DA2, but I sometimes found myself frustrated by the fact that Hawke often felt like a very static character compared to the companion characters. We got to see how the companion characters were affected by their interactions with Hawke, but not so much the other way around.

Modifié par jillabender, 14 septembre 2012 - 07:29 .

[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.

[Yrkoon]

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.

  LOL   that's a silly Oversimplification.

No different than saying that if you want cinematics in your games then the Ideal game for you   is a Movie.  Therefore if you want to watch what's happening  YOU'D  WATCH A DAMN  MOVIE!

But lets employ a little bit of intelligence here.  Crpgs have LONG since succeeded in reaching the sweet spot to satisfy both the movie-goer and the table top gamer.  Perhaps we can stop pretending that it hasn't, or that "evolution" has somehow chosen to favor one over the other.  Because it hasn't.  Bioware's games, as good as you swear they are, are not benchmark standards for the industry, nor do they represent the future..

Modifié par Yrkoon, 14 septembre 2012 - 07:17 .

[jillabender]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

I certainly agree that we all have different ideas of "the ideal RPG," and even different ideas of the ideal tabletop D&D game. And I certainly wouldn't argue that all BioWare games should necessarily try to emulate tabletop RPGs, or that they should all be like DA:O.

I do think, though, that BioWare provided an exceptional role-playing experience in DA:O, regardless of how similar one thinks it is to tabletop RPGs. I've been playing DA:O since 2010, and it still inspires me to create new characters with their own stories to tell.

Modifié par jillabender, 14 septembre 2012 - 07:18 .

[Yrkoon]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
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?
.

This is a *great* point.  I wonder how many people here actually realize  the totality of what they're asking for when they say that a video game should give more of a Table-top feel.

I played Pen and paper D&D for the majority of my teen years.  it's a MULTI-PLAYER game, by definition, folks.   make no mistake about it.  Yet, I dispise multiplayer in my cRPGs.  I simply won't engage in it.  Didn't play the BG series  multiplayer.  Didn't join any persistant worlds for NWN, and I never wasted a second of my time with any MMO, ever.


All that said, I still agree with the OP.  There are huge elements in table top play  that do indeed translate well into a single player cRPG experience, and past Bioware games have done a fantastic job in encorporating them.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 14 septembre 2012 - 07:51 .

[Emzamination]

jillabender wrote...

Emzamination wrote…

As far as your post goes: You're not really showing me a difference in the two systems.In Dragon age origins (Without cheating) you have to wait until the relationship bar hits a certain point to activate new conversation topics and once those are exhausted, the romance dialogue enters a repeating loop.

In Dragon age 2 you must wait until the Friendship/rivalry bar hits a certain point to activate new conversation and once those topics are exhausted the dialogue enters the same loop, with the only difference being it's not as confrontational.

As far as waiting whole acts for new material goes, that's nothing new, I'll remind you that romances with alistair, morrigan and zevran required certain main story missions to be completed before they could be completed, with Alistair and zevran taking the entire game.

It's true that you had to visit the Circle Tower and find a certain item before Morrigan's romance progressed beyond a certain point. Similarly, Alistair's romance would not progress beyond a certain point until the party traveled to Redcliffe, and Zevran's romance could not be completed until the encounter with Taliesin once the Landsmeet was convened.

However, I still think it's fair to say that DA:O offers more variability in terms of the timing of crucial conversations with companion characters. For example, it's possible to get the revelation about Alistair's parentage, unlocking his companion quest, either shortly after Ostagar, or much later in the game, depending on when the PC goes to Redcliffe. Similarly, the player can unlock, and complete, Morrigan's companion quest quite early in the game, or much later, and the same is true for Leliana.

I can see the advantages of both approaches – BioWare seems to have wanted in DA2 to give Hawke's relationship with each companion a tighly focused story arc, with a very clearly defined beginning, middle and end, and I can appreciate that. Personally, though, I prefer the greater flexibility of DA:O's approach. But that's just me.

I agree that there are positive qualities to both approaches.Personally I liked Da2's romances more because the conversations felt more 'Adult' but they lacked the depth of origin's romances.

Also Alistair's romance didn't solidify till after the landsmeet. pre-landsmeet he keeps expressing his doubts saying he doesn't know what the future holds for him and the warden.

Modifié par Emzamination, 14 septembre 2012 - 07:43 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

I agree with OP

[Cultist]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
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?

Based on experience, the most successful brands tend to enchance the gampleay and systems they already have, instead of overhauling them. Starcraft 2, Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex, Portal 2, New Vegas, Dead Space 2 - they just polished an existing product, upgrading graphics but leaving the core intact. But it is among the games that turned to overhauling we can see failures: Heroes of M&M 4 and 6, Master of Orion 3, CIv5, Tiberium Twilight, Syndicate. they all got tremendous success in the past but instead of building upon their success they decided to change their games completely. DA2 was different from DA:O not by graphics but by the very genre, due to prevailing action over RPG elements.

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?

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.
So yes, adding wheel affected the conversational part of the game. And conversations are a vital part of role-playing game. Overall, it helped with the transition of  the game from RPG to arcade gentre. That's why so much hate towards it even after more than a year since DA2 release. And now that we know that it will be in DA3, modified, but nevertheless the Wheel.

[ianvillan]

Cultist wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...
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?

Based on experience, the most successful brands tend to enchance the gampleay and systems they already have, instead of overhauling them. Starcraft 2, Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex, Portal 2, New Vegas, Dead Space 2 - they just polished an existing product, upgrading graphics but leaving the core intact. But it is among the games that turned to overhauling we can see failures: Heroes of M&M 4 and 6, Master of Orion 3, CIv5, Tiberium Twilight, Syndicate. they all got tremendous success in the past but instead of building upon their success they decided to change their games completely. DA2 was different from DA:O not by graphics but by the very genre, due to prevailing action over RPG elements.

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?

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.
So yes, adding wheel affected the conversational part of the game. And conversations are a vital part of role-playing game. Overall, it helped with the transition of  the game from RPG to arcade gentre. That's why so much hate towards it even after more than a year since DA2 release. And now that we know that it will be in DA3, modified, but nevertheless the Wheel.

Deus Ex was a popular game liked by many, but with the usual complaints like out-dated graphics. So then the makers of Deus Ex did what Bioware did they scrapped most of the systems of the first game and brought in generic action features, cutting choices and rpg systems for the sequal. 

The game was a flop and actually killed the franchise for a long while, the devs came out and admitted that it was wrong to change a successfull game in such a drastic way and the reason they had done it was because they listened to the mass market who had not played the first game at all.

Modifié par ianvillan, 14 septembre 2012 - 08:46 .

[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 .

[Mr Fixit]

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.

Sorry man, but that's just nonsense.

[ianvillan]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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 your limit of options for dialogue was actually specifically 5.

I dont like the dialogue wheel and don't believe it should be in dragon age, but if you are going to have it in game dont just copy paste it from Mass Effect, change how it looks to fit in with the style and look of the dragon age universe.

[Dean_the_Young]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

I saw what you did there, Allan. You should pull that one in the multiplayer thread.



Addressing your main point, I'll certainly vouch that I don't play RPG's for the attempt to replicate D&D in a fantasy/sci-fi/whatever setting. If nothing else, D&D games in my experience had terrible storylines, and abysmal support characters... and while some may say Bioware trips over the first from time to time, I don't know anyone who thinks Bioware games are anything but an exemplar for supporting characters as a whole.

[Fast Jimmy]

ianvillan wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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 your limit of options for dialogue was actually specifically 5.

I dont like the dialogue wheel and don't believe it should be in dragon age, but if you are going to have it in game dont just copy paste it from Mass Effect, change how it looks to fit in with the style and look of the dragon age universe.

One of the problems I had with the dialogue wheel as opposed to a list of dialogue options, as seen in Origins, is that you don't know what is the Investigate option... if that makes any sense.

The thirll of conversation in DA:O was the sheer simplicity of the ability to put your foot in your mouth. You could say just about anything and get a "Morrigan Disapproves" line. I never knew when talking with people in Origins if what I was choosing to say would gather me more information, move the conversation ahead so that I could not back track, or anger the person involved and end things abruptly. On one hand, it gave me great information as to what exact words my character would be saying, but, on the other hand, it never advertised the outcome of those choices.

The dialog wheel, I feel, accomplished the exact opposite. It didn't let me know exactly what I would be saying, but it clearly let me know the exact outcome of each choice. Which, I feel, diminishes some of the thrill in waiting to see an NPC's response. If I know an option will result in a fight, a bribe, an auto-win dialogu option (like the Star or the Companion options) or investigate, then I don't even have to know what my character is saying. 

In DA:O (and, ultimately in a PnP game), I had the freedom to suggest a great many things... but I didn't have the certainty of knowing they would be successful. I could suggest bribing someone, but such an offer could result in the person taking offense or even starting a fight/battle. In such cases, I usually review the EXACT words my Warden (or my table-top character) chose and decided if the person I was talking to would be receptive to such an offer. In DA2, I knew it would be succesful regardless, because it gave the Bribe icon and not the Battle icon.

Such clarifications on the wheel made it less like choosing dialog and more metagaming. I can just blindly choose the Diplomatic option in every situation where the three options pull up to play a Diplomatic Hawke, and then make sure I explored all Investigate options if they appeared and then slide in the occassional special icon during certain situations. It removed the need to explore and think about conversation options for me. Mixing and matching the diplomatic/sarcastic/aggressive options almost seemed to be penalized with the changing tone mechanic and wound up giving a somewhat disjointed experience. 

Back to a more on topic (that topic being PnP as the inspiration for what all video game RPGs should look to be), I agree that a tabletop game is multiplayer, by its very nature. But, in all honesty, in my PnP days, I had an excellent DM who liked to also do individual quests with our characters, as well as group instances. And these are more vivid in my mind than the ones where I had a group of guys around. Because in these instances, he would customize content not just for the group to tackle, but for me, personally, and my skill set and opportunites. It felt like a much more rich and fulfilling experience, especially when I behaved in brash ways the DM did not expect, but he had still made contingencies for. Ultimately, this is what a video game RPG does best - acting as a DM to one person for a personally-driven experience. 

A multiplayer game does not have the same feel as a table-top group, either. At any time, a multiplayer game could have the sense of "playing" broken at any time, such as someone going through town, hopping all the way, or asking me via chat if I want an invitation to visit a p0rn site, or someone saying "ok, imabe afk, got 2 tk a dump." While you get real life, silliness and off-game-topic conversation in table top games, its with people you know, either through real life or through the act of playing the game together. Its the difference between a Poker Night with your buddies drinking some brews in someone's basement and going online to Full Tilt Poker and playing hands with strangers throught the internet. One is a social outing that builds camrederie, the other is stale and boring, the only purpose to win money. To compare a tabletop game with a multiplayer game is a little like calling six hours playing online poker "hanging out with the guys." While, in a loose sense, possibly true? Its not at all the same feel.

Not that there is anything inherently wrong with multiplayer, I just feel there are many ways to do it wrong in a series like Dragon Age, with only a VERY small handful in how to do it right.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 14 septembre 2012 - 09:52 .

[Kidd]

Cultist wrote...

But it is among the games that turned to overhauling we can see failures:

Fallout 3, Metroid Prime, Megaman X, Super Mario 64, Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Zelda 64 are all failures to you?

While the examples you put for both overhauling and upgrades are indeed mostly true, they're only true because the games in question became worse or better games - the idea that overhauling always leads to failure and upgrading does not is false. I highly doubt Megaman 5 outsold Megaman X, and I'm pretty sure Symphony of the Night outsold Rondo of Blood etc. Sometimes overhauling something can make the sequel even more true to the original concept, and sometimes change is simply for the better.

Cultist wrote...

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.

I understand the complaints that with the wheel + voiced PC comes paraphrases, and while I support paraphrases I see where those opinions are coming from. But this complaint about the wheel makes very little sense to me.

How often do you really have more than 4 choices on the old list in DAO that further the conversation? (vs blue, purple, red + star/heart in DA2) I can't recall a single instance. Usually there's the nice option on number 1, the mean/aggressive option on the final number and sometimes a funny option in the middle. In between these numbers there will be questions, that are basically investigate options.

In total, the DAO list limits conversation to 6 options. The wheel in DA2 allows 10 options. The standard wheel in DA2 probably has 3 "choices" and two investigative options - that's 5 options on the old list. Hence, it's but one reply short of the very max limit the DAO list had.

I'll need something more before I accept that the wheel led to less dialogue options in DA2. To me it seems mostly like people don't count questions put under the Investigate sub menu even though DAO was full of questions and then react "3 choices on the wheel? but I had 5 in DAO." While I suppose there may be an issue with conveyance on the wheel since such a misunderstanding is so prevalent, I've yet to see anything that shows it is actually anything but a misunderstanding.

Modifié par KiddDaBeauty, 14 septembre 2012 - 11:31 .

[Quething]

Yrkoon wrote...

This is a *great* point.  I wonder how many people here actually realize  the totality of what they're asking for when they say that a video game should give more of a Table-top feel.

I think people are asking for agency.

Maria Caliban sort of touched on this, but wanting to make gameplay more "cinematic" absolutely strips away player agency.

In Origins, there were two types of companion conversations: ones that can only happen in camp, and ones that can happen anywhere. Most conversations could happen anywhere. This is because most conversations were pretty simple. The Warden stood there,  her conversation partner stood there, and they yakked. They would make gestures and facial expressions appropriate to what they were saying, but they didn't interact with their environment at all, which allowed the conversations to freely occur in any environment.

A few rare occasions had some actual movement and blocking; those only happened in camp, because they required you to be in camp for the items being used to be there (can't have sex in Morrigan's tent if you're in the middle of Redcliffe). But this was only a few conversations. Most were available wherever.

The effect was a much more natural feel. You could ask Sten to explain some comment he'd made to an NPC while you were out hunting darkspawn, or while shopping in Denerim, like people do in real life. When Marjolaine dies you can ask Leliana about it instantly because your Warden is the concerned, involved type, or ask her later because your Warden is the type to give her friends space. This is important to the feeling of player agency.

But there's also a second effect of "cinematic" dialog that is even more important: the loss of variable conversation.

In the DA:O system, when the character is just standing there, you can have lines lead into each other however you want. You can insert entire optional loops into the conversation, and have any line lead to any other line in whatever way you want. You can give the player the ability to go off on tangents and the NPC to follow, and then let the player return at any point to the main conversation. You can offer two dialog options that both lead back to the same end result, and have one of them get there in three sentences and another meander through five sentences and a player choice.

You can't do that in "cinematic" conversations. If you want Aveline to pick up a Minrathous snowglobe and stare into it when you ask her about her vacation in Tevinter, you cannot let the player jump back to talking about grain distribution at any time. Because now she's on the wrong side of the room and has stuff in her hands, and the animation for her line about building new silos has her leaning forward over her desk. She needs to put down the snowglobe first and walk back to where she was standing before, or else she jumps magically across the room and breaks immersion.

You could, of course,  have her pick up the snowglobe and put it back down again by the end of the line. But that looks hilariously awkward. They did this in ME2 a lot when they were still feeling their way around the system, and people laughed their heads off about Liara and Aria and their silly "stand up sit down" routine. That's not a cinematic experience either. The only option, if you want characters to move naturally around each other and their world instead of doing the talking head thing, is to control the converstion's pacing and direction from start to finish.

The dialog wheel may look the same under the hood as the DA:O system, but as a UI it makes obvious the effect of attaching animation to everything and grounding conversations in their environment: you get an investigation branch loop that always plays out exactly the same in every game and always leads back to the exact same start point, and two to three forward options that always lead to the exact same next wheel.

That doesn't feel like agency or choice. The illusion of variety and control is completely lost, even in situations where you actually have more dialog options than any given moment in a less "cinematic" game.

Now, is it a fair point that the technology may eventually exist to easily separate dialog from animation, so that you can give an NPC a set of things to interact with and moods for each line and have them actually know where they're standing so they can act out different lines in accordance with the mood and what they're near, rather than having to block it all out beforehand, providing the ultimate in variety and cinematic experience? And that no one will look for that tech if everyone figures that talking heads is good enough? Sure, absolutely.

But is BioWare pursuing that technology, or are they accepting the limits of the tech they have and allowing that to steer them away from the very different experience they once provided?

Modifié par Quething, 14 septembre 2012 - 11:36 .