298 réponses à ce sujet

[Massa FX]

I expect to have both awesome cinematics and full RPG gameplay. Why polarize this? I demand both.

[Knight of Dane]

^2nd

[zyntifox]

Massa FX wrote...

I expect to have both awesome cinematics and full RPG gameplay. Why polarize this? I demand both.

Because cinematics means leaving control of your character in the hands of the writers that may or may not act or say something that goes against the character you are roleplaying. Then you get cinematics at the cost of roleplayability. You can create cinematic with a low probability of breaking character, this is a thin thread i thought DA:O handled perfectly in their cinematics, but it is difficult.

Edit: It goes both ways by the way. By having a silent protagonist the cinematic presentation focused on the protagonist will be underwhelming, unless you do cinematic like in DA:O and focuses on the party members e.g. Alistair's speech before the final battle, but you gain player control.

This balance is hard and is something i thought DA:O got right. It was a good compromise between cinematic presentation and player control. Have no idea why Bioware hit DA2 with the Mass effect stick though since they are, in my opinion, two completely different genres.

Modifié par Cstaf, 14 septembre 2012 - 05:10 .

[Welsh Inferno]

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.

Absolutely love the cinematics for the Battle of Ostagar & Denerim.

[zyntifox]

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.

Absolutely love the cinematics for the Battle of Ostagar & Denerim.

Don't forget about the deep roads. I got a shiver down my spine when the Archdemon landed on the bridge and started the fireworks.

[Welsh Inferno]

Cstaf wrote...

Don't forget about the deep roads. I got a shiver down my spine when the Archdemon landed on the bridge and started the fireworks.

Oh yeah.. I just played that part again too.... *slaps self*

Also when he appears in the dream before the Shrieks attack the camp.. crapped myself the first time 

[Realmzmaster]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

^
Blane,

While I totally agree that the digital medium has many limits, it can account for the limits about not being 100% dynamic by building in as much player choice as disc limitation and budget allows. Because while tabletop DMs can react to a situation on the fly, a team of two dozen writers can also say 'what would a player want to do in this situation' over the course of two years.

While they may not be quite as reactive given that it all has to be pre-scripted, if the thought is 'what would the player want to do' rather than 'the only way I can envision the story playing out is like this', then the game can, in a sense, be as much like a live DM as possible, but also have the rich companions and NPCs that are done better than watching your buddy try and fake a bad abritush accent, and to hide all of the dice rolling and mechanics in the background.

A computer game already has so many plusses with professional writing and acting to a system that can manage inventory and number crunch, that the only flaw that needs to be shore up to best a tabletop experience is to properly give players choice and, essentially, DM the encounter, rather than just write it as a play to be acted out to the letter.

I agree with you to a point. The problem is that with a dozen or more writers you can get a dozen or more responses to the same issue stating What would a player do in this situation. The writers then have to decide which responses would be most likely. The most likey responses can be included but the response I would envision may still not be included.
Until the program's AI can adapt and think for itself it cannot reach the level of a live DM. Even in DAO I could only pick the choice that was close to what I wanted to say in response and sometimes I did not find a choice that I agreed with , but I simply had to make a choice to further the plotline.

No system is going to be perfect or appeal to every one. I had no problem with the dialogue wheel or the paraphrasing. Sometimes (for me) seeing all the dialogue choices is just a lesson in frustration because none of them is what I want. If I am allowed to set the tone of my responses (I want to be aggressive, etc) then I can live with what is being said.  I fully realize that everyone cannot do that.

[philippe willaume]

ReggarBlane wrote...

One must consider the medium of the game.

No digital system can accommodate all the variables of table-top D&D.

Table-top D&D is more about reacting to the situation by both the players and the DM. Rules can often apply to the same situation in different ways, or the group can bend and break them as necessary for the game. It's highly adaptive. That's not unlike improv acting/comedy where the story can flow wherever they wish (often with a few constraints to keep it from going to live on the sun in a setting of neanderthal days). In the same vein, adaptation makes the individual, unique story possible.

Digital RPGs can only handle a limit of variances. They do not adapt. Computer RPG products have somewhat defined computer RPGs as games of stats since the first attempts. Anything beyond that is pretty much a bonus. With several BWE games, we get a story system that has some adaptive qualities to it. That's more than what a lot of computer RPGs do. Be glad to have that, or else, you might as well stick to PnP D&D. The inability to adapt causes one to experience a story rather than create it.

EDIT: Clarity

that is true but that is not the point

 

Both DA:0 and DA:2 are computer RPGs.

in DA:O, you said what you chose to day and the consquences were not certain.

and yes sometimes I reloaded because the dialogue I choose what not in the tone I would have expected or the way the party in question reacted was far too disproportionate compared to what I though I said.

so in that respect, DA:2 is an improvement, the problem is that i can't remember an instance where the people you talked too did not act accordingly to the tone you had chosen to use.

So the tone you chose was almost always the result you would get.
phil

Modifié par philippe willaume, 14 septembre 2012 - 05:52 .

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Agree with title of this topic.

Go watch Shrek, Incredibles or else if you're enthusiast with Clips and Cinematics.

Tabletop D&D is ... No, I want NWN 3!

[zyntifox]

philippe willaume wrote...

Both DA:0 and DA:2 are computer RPGs.

in DA:O, you said what you chose to day and the consquences were not certain.

and yes sometimes I reloaded because the dialogue I choose what not in the tone I would have expected or the way the party in question reacted was far too disproportionate compared to what I though I said.

so in that respect, DA:2 is an improvement, the problem is that i can't remember an instance where the people you talked too did not act accordingly to the tone you had chosen to use.

So the tone you chose was almost always the result you would get.
phil

That's funny, i had the same thing happen to me again and again in DA2. I had to save prior to every conversation due to misinterpretting the paraphrasing. I did not have that problem in DA:O since if i picked a dialogue i thought was sarcastic and the NPC did not interpret it as i told it in a sarcastic tone i would just assume the NPC lacked a "funny bone". Did not reload the conversation for that reason since i thought i was the fault of the NPC not my character.

That was something i could not see past in DA2 because the protagonist was saying something i did not want him/her to say. And that was the fault of me, or the writers of the paraphrase, not the personality of the NPC. In the end this will always happen since you take away information by using paraphrasing. Since Bioware is hell-bent on using this system i hope they implement some kind of quicksave/quick-reload feature or a rewind-feature in the dialogue.

Modifié par Cstaf, 14 septembre 2012 - 06:08 .

[Quething]

In SWTOR you can hit escape to quit a conversation in the middle of a line, and then restart it. Even if the conversation triggered the moment you entered a room, or the second a fight ended - you don't have to leave and re-enter or do the fight again, you just click on the NPC to start again from the beginning.

It's really nice, and because of that feature, I have absolutely no visceral animosity whatsoever for the SWTOR dialog wheel, despite the fact that SWTOR paraphrases are significantly more deceptive and likely to lead to an undesirable outcome than DA2 or ME2/3 paraphrases (since SWTOR lacks mood icons and doesn't follow the standard "nice-neutral-mean" positioning to give you a clue about your tone). It's still annoying to have to re-start a conversation six times to get your PC to sound remotely in-character, and if you're partied up with other players it's not really an option, but it's still much better than trying to navigate that first long-ass conversation with Flemeth.

[zyntifox]

Quething wrote...

In SWTOR you can hit escape to quit a conversation in the middle of a line, and then restart it. Even if the conversation triggered the moment you entered a room, or the second a fight ended - you don't have to leave and re-enter or do the fight again, you just click on the NPC to start again from the beginning.

It's really nice, and because of that feature, I have absolutely no visceral animosity whatsoever for the SWTOR dialog wheel, despite the fact that SWTOR paraphrases are significantly more deceptive and likely to lead to an undesirable outcome than DA2 or ME2/3 paraphrases (since SWTOR lacks mood icons and doesn't follow the standard "nice-neutral-mean" positioning to give you a clue about your tone). It's still annoying to have to re-start a conversation six times to get your PC to sound remotely in-character, and if you're partied up with other players it's not really an option, but it's still much better than trying to navigate that first long-ass conversation with Flemeth.

I will never understand the decision to use paraphrase instead of the whole line of dialogue. I've read that they think people don't want to read and listen to the same dialogue or that if they read the line they will skip the voiced dialogue. But that has to be preferable to surprising the player by his character's dialogue that he is supposed to be in control of.

Modifié par Cstaf, 14 septembre 2012 - 06:19 .

[Kidd]

Fast Jimmy wrote...


I have used Morrigan's romance as a prime example of something that would be extremely hard to accomplish with the dialogue wheel. Saying romantic things to her (something I would imagine would only be able to be demonstrated with the Heart Icon) would actually cause her to like you less, while saying comments like 'love is an illusion, there is only Zuul... I mean, power...' would progress the romance on. What would be the icon for that? A broken heart? That does not seem logical. 

It would be blunt, most likely. And indeed, heart icons would not entice her.

Perhaps it'd be possibly to soften her by going the rivalmance path, though

Mr Fixit wrote...

I especially disliked those 'special' icons -- flirting, bribe, crossed swords etc -- because they tend to run with the abovementioned principle to the extreme. In order to bribe someone, you have to know what buttons to push. Is it money? Duty? Family? Honour? You don't just go in and magically "bribe" someone. Also, crossed swords. How does Hawke know that a dialogue option results in fighting?

Crossed swords means Hawke is unsheathing their weapons, more or less. It's the phrase said that signals battle. Of course you know fighting will be had when you're the one who instigates it.

Bribing... is the bribe icon ever used in any case aside from when you're offering money? Which icon it shares with complaining about low pay, I believe. Selecting said icon in no way ensures you will successfully bribe somebody, nor that you will indeed get more money for your troubles... but come now, how often did you see a "[Bribe] Can 5 sovereigns change your mind?" fail in Origins? Or a "[Cunning] That's not wise" or any other special dialogue option?

If you wish there to be some impossible options up for selection, that's a separate complaint and has nothing to do with the wheel, paraphrases or intent icons.

Cultist wrote...

Investigate option never actually affected gameplay and was just a dialogue.

Not true. Investigating would sometimes change which three basic options you had at the ready due to new information being available, and at some points you would even lose the ability to say certain things due to investigating. Not to mention whether you investigate or not can change your F/R rating with companions (Bethany prefers you do not at all talk to the Wesley in the beginning for instance, giving much more friendship points if you don't try to argue with him iirc). Another fine example would be you losing one of the three choice icons during the first confrontation in act 3 - you lose dialogue momentum and cannot pick the middle option if you do not go for it immediately.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Hmmm, maybe I'm tripping on the terminology used. For starters, every single conversation in the Dragon Age games is effectively a cutscene.

This is true, but you guys have considerable leeway in determining how restrictive that cutscene will be.

In DA2, for example, we weren't allowed to talk to our companions out in the world, because the cutscenes were designed only to work in specific locations.  That was a choice BioWare made to restrict player agency in order to prevent better cinematics.

I think you should resolve that conflict in the opposite direction pretty much every time.

Personally, I don't really see why we need a cutscene for conversations at all - conversations in NWN worked just fine without taking away our camera control or changing the GUI - but as long as you insist on using cutscenes for conversations then those cutscenes should be designed to restrict us as little as possible.  And that's the opposite of how DA2 did it.

And please, after any cutscene, put the characters back where they were before the scene began.  I hate how I can place all my characters strategically only to have a cutscene undo all my work.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Cstaf wrote...

Massa FX wrote...

I expect to have both awesome cinematics and full RPG gameplay. Why polarize this? I demand both.

Because cinematics means leaving control of your character in the hands of the writers that may or may not act or say something that goes against the character you are roleplaying. Then you get cinematics at the cost of roleplayability. You can create cinematic with a low probability of breaking character, this is a thin thread i thought DA:O handled perfectly in their cinematics, but it is difficult.

It depends how they do it.  Imagine procedurally generated cinematics, perhaps based on something like Splinter Cell's Mark & Execute feature.  You'd decide what your character is going to do, and then those actions are shown to you in a cinematic.

There's nothing inherently contradictory about cinematics and player agency.  But the way BioWare has done cinematics has been, so far, antithetical to player agency.

If we look at DAO-style conversations, even there we saw cases where at the end of the conversation the characters were standing somewhere different from where they'd been before the conversation.  That's something I think BioWare needs to fix as well.  DAO wasn't perfect in this regard (though I agree it was much better than DA2).

I'd love to see somethng like procedurally generated camera movement in conversation scenes, because that would eliminate the need to restrict certain conversations to certain locations.

[Sylvius the Mad]

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.

[Fast Jimmy]

^

I think the reasons for those cut scenes showing loghain and his actions were an attempt to use the 'show me, don't tell me' mindset. Rather than just be told that Loghain is encountering opposition by the Bannons and Anora, the cut scene shows it. I agree it can be a suspension of knowing things outside of what your character should know, but, at the same time, it never gives you information that would spoil any future roleplaying options.

For instance, by the time you see Zevran in the ambush, you know that you are being attacked, so seeing Loghain hire him earlier does nothing to ruin that encounter.

I agree it is a suspension of immersion issue, but at the same time, I can see the story-telling merits to this tehnique as well.

[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?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

^

I think the reasons for those cut scenes showing loghain and his actions were an attempt to use the 'show me, don't tell me' mindset. Rather than just be told that Loghain is encountering opposition by the Bannons and Anora, the cut scene shows it. I agree it can be a suspension of knowing things outside of what your character should know, but, at the same time, it never gives you information that would spoil any future roleplaying options.

For instance, by the time you see Zevran in the ambush, you know that you are being attacked, so seeing Loghain hire him earlier does nothing to ruin that encounter.

Sure it does - it tells us Zevran is telling the truth.

Or Loghain's retreat at Ostagar - because we've seen the cutscene, Morrigan's news of it isn't revelatory.  But what if it were?  Would you believe Morrigan?  Should Alistair?

Giving us this information dramatically changes how future scenes are received.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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?

In the end, yes, but how you first react to something is determined by what it tells you.  You know Morrigan is telling the truth, so you need to actively play a character who doesn't - it's not as natural.

I think it would be more fun for the player not to know what actually happened at Ostagar, and have only hearsay from a suspect witch - a witch your only companion (Alistair) openly distrusts.

I also think the game is often written differently based on what the writers expect the player to know, rather than based on what the writers expect the character to know.  With Zevran, I don't think the case is made well enough after the ambush that Loghain actually hired him.  The player already know he did, because he saw the cutscene, but that shouldn't inform the Warden's behaviour.  But the game seems to assume from that point on that the Warden sees Loghain as villainous, when that hasn't actually been made clear to the Warden.

[Shadow Fox]

So basicly:

Some people enjoy the cinematics/cutscenes
and some don't
So no matter what the devs do someone's gonna get on these boards to rage about something DA3 did or didn't do.
Cant we all just agree to disagree

[Welsh Inferno]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

In the end, yes, but how you first react to something is determined by what it tells you.  You know Morrigan is telling the truth, so you need to actively play a character who doesn't - it's not as natural.

I think it would be more fun for the player not to know what actually happened at Ostagar, and have only hearsay from a suspect witch - a witch your only companion (Alistair) openly distrusts.

I also think the game is often written differently based on what the writers expect the player to know, rather than based on what the writers expect the character to know.  With Zevran, I don't think the case is made well enough after the ambush that Loghain actually hired him.  The player already know he did, because he saw the cutscene, but that shouldn't inform the Warden's behaviour.  But the game seems to assume from that point on that the Warden sees Loghain as villainous, when that hasn't actually been made clear to the Warden.

I understand your point of view but for me personally, I have no problem continuing to role-play a character even with said knowledge. You know the whole game after one playthrough, do you have trouble immersing yourself in future playthrough's with the knowledge you have? I certainly do not.

As long as there arn't too many cutscenes and the cutscenes dont force the player out of my control I'm fine with them. So yeah I loved how it was done in Origins.

[Welsh Inferno]

Arcane Warrior Mage Hawke wrote...

So basicly:

Some people enjoy the cinematics/cutscenes
and some don't
So no matter what the devs do someone's gonna get on these boards to rage about something DA3 did or didn't do.
Cant we all just agree to disagree

Thats how everything works. No matter how good or bad something is there will always be someone with the opposite opinion. Discussion is good, gives the devs feedback.

[PsychoBlonde]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

This is not the only alternative.  Using procedurally-generated content lets you have a, literally, infinitely long game.  However, there's yet another tradeoff involved there--there are sharp limits to the quality of experience and creativity you can get out of a procedural system.  Do an infinite number of "go to X location.  Get Y item.  Bring it back." quests make for a better game experience?  Maybe.  One of the big complaints about DA2 was the "re-used" areas.  I actually didn't mind these because it was easy to remember where the stuff-hidden-in-corners could be, but I'm sure a lot of people would have preferred procedurally-generated "random" areas that looked "different" even if they were bland as oatmeal a la Diablo.

Now, from what I've seen, it appears Bioware has thrown out procedurally generated content altogether as being not your style, so, yeah, your tradeoff in the content quantity area is apparently between longer game vs. a branching game with lots of choice options.

Here's the thing, though: you *can* have a very linear (non-branching) game with a huge number of impactful choices.  In fact, I'd be willing to say that you can have a 100% linear game (in the sense that you experience EXACTLY the same content in EXACTLY the same order), in which you still make an *enormous* number of choices that *completely* determine your game experience.  How?  Well, I'll show you.

Suppose you have a game where the basic plot consists of the protagonist fighting their way from point A to point Z.  They're eventually going to get from A to Z.  There are no options involved.  This is the only direction to go.  The only thing you do to get from A to Z is to fight enemies along the way.  Sounds like you have no choices at all, right?

WRONG.  Here's the kind of basic choice you have: Do I charge in gung-ho, aggro 5-6 enemies at a time, and take tons of damage, dying over and over and over?  Or do I play conservatively and take minimal damage, dying rarely if at all?  This choice HUGELY impacts your experience of the game.

And that's in the most simplistic form of that game imaginable.  Let's add some more choices.  Let's add a variety of different weapons that function very differently but get damaged over time and eventually destroyed.  Let's give you limited inventory space.  Let's add a large variety of enemies and enemy situations.  Let's add ranged weapons vs. melee.  Let's add a stealth option.  Let's add side rooms that you can search for or choose to ignore.  Let's add explosive barrels and boulders you can roll onto enemies (or they can roll onto you).  Lets add health potions and speed potions and invulnerability potions in extremely limited quantities that you can use when you want.  Let's add a powerful flying mount that can't go in narrow spaces.  And now you've made Drakan: Order of the Flame.

In the way you've built Dragon Age, however, you've kind of nailed yourselves in a box because you've created a game in which the only real "choices" people talk about are the ones that come about through dialog selections--because the myriad impactful choices that you have in other games are minimized or even eliminated by the way the game is built.  For example, the everyone-heals-to-full-at-end-of-combat means there's very little impact to choosing between playing cautiously to minimize resource expenditure vs. crazy banzai suicide mode.  Oh, it changes how you experience the game RIGHT NOW, but it does NOT change how you experience the game ten minutes or two hours down the road.  Compare this with a game like DDO where burning through your spell points NOW may mean facing the end boss with very little magic power at your command.  There's a HUGE difference in the degree of agency you feel even though there's no dialog trees or cinematics involved.  Heck, even the class you pick in Dragon Age is ultimately a non-impactful choice because you have the party and you get to pick most of their abilities too, as well as which of them you take where.

Heck, even in Baldur's Gate 2 (a party-based game) your character's class was incredibly impactful because after Yoshimo died there were NO straight rogue companions.  I'm pretty sure that wasn't intended, but there was a biiiiiig change between "I'm a rogue and traps are not a big deal" and "I'm not a rogue and we don't have a decent one available so traps are a royal pain in the ass".  Not to mention that you could have alignment conflicts and NPC's who REQUIRE other NPC's to be in the party at the same time . . . the game was VERY different if you played a mage or a paladin, and that's just from the combat mechanical side of things.  I'm not even talking about the various class quests and stuff that got put in.  How different would DA2 have been if, after Aveline got married, you HAD to have Donal in the party with her at the same time?  There would have been some SERIOUS impact on the decision to help them hook up or not.

So now you're stuck with this tradeoff of "length" vs. "choices", which is a false alternative created by your design choices.  No wonder a lot of people have a problem with it.

The real problem here is WHAT the choices impact.  ANYTHING that impacts your actual GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE is way, way, incredibly, more impactful than a choice that . . . . impacts whether you get a letter thanking you for your help, even if you make the gameplay-related choice in a fraction of a second whereas the letter choice involves half an hour of questing and cutscenes.  Oh, I understand why you guys have shied away from these kinds of choices--the whinefest about Bethany vs. Carver being determined by your character class is a prime example.  So part of the reason behind it is also because there's always some section of the playerbase who wants to be able to have their cake and eat it too . . . they want to "have meaningful choices" that don't actually change anything.  But this is impossible by the very definition of a meaningful choice . . . that it CHANGES something.