88368 réponses à ce sujet

[upsettingshorts]

ArinTheirinCousland wrote...

And to say that we will have background, but it won't be playable? Hah. That's dangerously close to ME;
the chosen background had very, very little effect on the story (need I remind you that BW told us our Shepard's background would have a big impact in the series but failed to deliver?).

That doesn't guarantee the DA team will have the same issues.

In hindsight I think one of the problems with ME's backgrounds not having an impact is the backgrounds themselves didn't seem to be super-related to the story being told, and when they did, they had to be ignored (Sole Survivor + working with Cerberus).

But let's assume for a moment that DA3 is about the Templar/Mage crisis, a safe assumption.

What if the background options include things like "ex-Templar" or "Circle Mage" or "Apostate?"  Those things would matter to the story, and could come up a lot.  That's speculation on my part, but it demonstrates that a background need not necessarily be so... detached and irrelevant.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 20 octobre 2012 - 09:09 .

[Blackrising]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

ArinTheirinCousland wrote...

And to say that we will have background, but it won't be playable? Hah. That's dangerously close to ME;
the chosen background had very, very little effect on the story (need I remind you that BW told us our Shepard's background would have a big impact in the series but failed to deliver?).

That doesn't guarantee the DA team will have the same issues.

In hindsight I think one of the problems with ME's backgrounds not having an impact is the backgrounds themselves didn't seem to be super-related to the story being told.

But let's assume for a moment that DA3 is about the Templar/Mage crisis, a safe assumption.

What if the background options include things like "ex-Templar" or "Circle Mage" or "Apostate?"  Those things would matter to the story, and could come up a lot.  That's speculation on my part, but it demonstrates that a background need not necessarily be so... detached and irrelevant.  

I will be severely disappointed if there's not a background called 'Chantry Zealot'.
Shun the non-believers! Shuuuuun!

[Masha Potato]

rapscallioness wrote...

If there are players that don't realize they Can go off road, one way to let them know is to have some enemies that spawn off road that you have to follow and fight for a bit.

Then maybe you discover something off road that leads to something else.

then you realize you're lost in the woods with a cannibal abomination

[rapscallioness]

Masha Potato wrote...

rapscallioness wrote...

If there are players that don't realize they Can go off road, one way to let them know is to have some enemies that spawn off road that you have to follow and fight for a bit.

Then maybe you discover something off road that leads to something else.

then you realize you're lost in the woods with a cannibal abomination

you mean Cole?

[wright1978]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

That doesn't guarantee the DA team will have the same issues.

In hindsight I think one of the problems with ME's backgrounds not having an impact is the backgrounds themselves didn't seem to be super-related to the story being told, and when they did, they had to be ignored (Sole Survivor + working with Cerberus).

But let's assume for a moment that DA3 is about the Templar/Mage crisis, a safe assumption.

What if the background options include things like "ex-Templar" or "Circle Mage" or "Apostate?"  Those things would matter to the story, and could come up a lot.  That's speculation on my part, but it demonstrates that a background need not necessarily be so... detached and irrelevant.  

It'll be interesting to how linked background's are to class.

[rapscallioness]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

rapscallioness wrote...

If there are players that don't realize they Can go off road, one way to let them know is to have some enemies that spawn off road that you have to follow and fight for a bit.

Then maybe you discover something off road that leads to something else.

That could be a reason or a building that is visible from the road and the player needs to find a way to get to it. Things do not always need to be that obvious.

Those who like to explore also like to put in more effort most of the time. They do not want to be held by the hand with every step they take in the game. Exploration is about finding out by yourself in a lot of cases, at least for me.

I like that. And then give me a "PathFinder" achievement. Yep.

[upsettingshorts]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Those who like to explore also like to put in more effort most of the time. They do not want to be held by the hand with every step they take in the game. Exploration is about finding out by yourself in a lot of cases, at least for me.

I'd say theres two kinds of what people call "hand holding."

Some of it is in the GUI.  This for cases where I as a player know what I want to do, but not how.  Almost nobody seems to have a problem with this, except some old school Sim City fans who think spreadsheets are inherently better than 3D infographics that display the same data as an overlay.  In general, it's not good for players to have to fight the game to do what they want to do and the game actually supports, so in that sense streamlining is a good thing despite its perjorative connotation.

Some of it is more broad.  For cases where I as a player don't know what to do.  This is a big problem because knowing what to do is kind of the bare minimum required for one to enjoy a game.  It doesn't matter that I think Football Manager series is a great soccer management sim, if you don't know what a defensive midfielder is supposed have good stats in, you're not going to enjoy the game.  Whereas someone who already knows will see the option that tells you in no uncertain terms what a defensive midfielder ought to be good at will scoff at the hand holding.  

As such, in the latter case, I think "hand holding" is only offensive to gamers when it is telling them what to do when they already know it.  To veteran, experienced gamers, we tend to forget that not everyone is as familiar as us with say... RPG tropes and mechanics.  It's easy to resent the things put into RPGs to help new players out, and there are occasionally ways of ignoring this (the star ratings in DA2 for example) or turning them off (quest flags).  But I don't think designers can afford to only consider players like us who are not only experienced but set in our ways. 

That's kind of the only thing I like about the concept of Achievements, they encourage players to try something they might not have otherwise.  That goes for veterans and noobs alike.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 20 octobre 2012 - 09:29 .

[rapscallioness]

I'm looking fwd to seeing how these backgrounds will have a "significant impact" in the game. And I hope when they say "significant", they mean significant.

A genuine path with advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation.

[CudaThedas]

Protagonist is human.

Player can choose different backgrounds for their character that will affect portions of the story.

Warden and Hawke may appear if you played the first two games and as NPCs.

 Flemeth is coming back.

Dragon Age is not a trilogy but there will be a close to certain stories, “threads.”

The is a big Quanri story waiting to be told. Not a big focus of the story but we will learn more.

Importing save files from previous games are presenting an issue due to the switch inengines. However they are looking at how to keep the Player’s choices.

 We are going across many lands this time around.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA:D

[upsettingshorts]

Example of what I meant about hand holding, from a game I'm certain this forum has almost zero familiarity with to demonstrate why its more important than we think. We're all RPG veterans here so RPG hand holding does nothing for us, so let's look at this:

Here's a player in Football Manager. He's a real guy, Michael Bradley.

Here's his attributes page. Can you tell me from this alone if he's good? How about what role you should give him on your team? If you're not familiar with soccer or Football Manager, there's zero chance you have the slightest clue.

But here's some hand-holding. You could, as I did, already know what he's good at and just find the appropriate role to confirm it for screenshot purposes. Or you could have picked out a bunch at random until you found the one that fit best. Congrats, you've learned a little bit about how to play a game because you had your hand held.

It's not always a bad thing. Some of it is super important, especially for new features or new players.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 20 octobre 2012 - 09:44 .

[deuce985]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

That is definitely something we have no real idea about yet, and the comment doesn't really address.

We'll see, I suppose.

We're definitely experimenting with what it means to have a more open level.  Finding some interesting things such as "give people a road, and they tend to follow it" and stuff like that.  Taking that and iterating on the level.  How can we encourage someone to maybe not follow the road (or at least make it clear they don't have to follow it).  Sometimes the road makes thematic sense, maybe we could do smaller roads but that doesn't always work.  At the same time we also don't want to take away from those that enjoy going off the beaten path.  If we effectively put arrows on the ground that say "there's something cool over there" they won't enjoy it as much.

Thanks Allan. Level design is definitely the thing I'm keeping a eye on. I feel that Bioware games lately are too linear in their design. It sounds like you guys are trying to find a balance between something that doesn't take away narrative but also doesn't make us feel like we're funneled down a tunnel. That's all I was asking. I never expect DA3 to be a massive open game.

The race selection is a huge bummer for me but my spirits raised when I heard you can pick background and it "play a significant role in your story". It doesn't need to be something you can play like Origins. I'm ok with that. I just want it to mean something to my PC and world. I hope that's not just marketing talk and it has two lines in the game like Mass Effect.

Not sure how to take the comment "one level is bigger than DA2". That's good but DA2's level design was bad. And what matters here is how many actual levels we get in DA3 and how well designed they are. For all we know, we can only get six maps total in the entire game. That wouldn't really be saying much on level size and variety.

[WardenWade]

dheer wrote...

Hrungr wrote...

motomotogirl wrote...

Hrungr wrote...
DA3: You can only play as human.

Bah!

Yeah I can't even believe how much this blows. My interest in the game just plummeted 

Yeah, this is definitely the first big letdown I've heard for DA3.

Indeed. This is one of the things I was hoping they would fix in the next game. Being forced to play another boring human. Yay. 

I guess I won't be buying DA3...  It didn't hurt to stump for it, and I think many more people than Bioware expected supported the idea   Races for DA4, then   It sounds as though the origins will be non-playable Mass Effect style...hopefully that will provide a sense of variety and significant difference for everyone, as well as replayability.  I do like the possibility for different kinds of mages, at least.

And I like the idea that my city elf Warden might appear again very much

Modifié par WardenWade, 20 octobre 2012 - 10:13 .

[rapscallioness]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

As such, in the latter case, I think "hand holding" is only offensive to gamers when it is telling them what to do when they already know it.  To veteran, experienced gamers, we tend to forget that not everyone is as familiar as us with say... RPG tropes and mechanics.  It's easy to resent the things put into RPGs to help new players out, and there are occasionally ways of ignoring this (the star ratings in DA2 for example) or turning them off (quest flags).  But I don't think designers can afford to only consider players like us who are not only experienced but set in our ways. 

That's kind of the only thing I like about the concept of Achievements, they encourage players to try something they might not have otherwise.  That goes for veterans and noobs alike.

hmmm, yeah, I do forget sometimes that it's all not as easy as it seems..to me anyway. And I'm all for noobs joining in and discovering a great world. I love it, so naturally I want everybody to have a chance to discover it.

Although, I have been reminded of this several times as I tried to get some of my friends --who are not gamers--to try it out. Knowing their personalities, I know they would enjoy it tremendously, once they got into it.

But oh, the learning curve. There are times when I'm like--  would you please get the camera from up off the floor! But nonono, that doesn't mean swoosh up to the ceiling...the horizon. go for the horizon..omg.

So, learning curve......well, that or the tequila. I'm not really sure which.

[deuce985]

Overall, I find the information so far very positive. A big thing that stood out to me is more customization than DAO/DA2. That's a huge bonus for me. I hope they add a robust crafting system to go with this. Possibly to give incentive in their new level design to explore? Find materials with a bigger crafting system? Seems logical to me.

While it sucks we can't pick race, the other information is very encouraging to me, assuming they execute the promises properly. <3

Modifié par deuce985, 20 octobre 2012 - 09:45 .

[deuce985]

What I find to be a major flaw in sandbox games is they generally don't fill their worlds in with content very well. You have these massive worlds and you barely see content between them. Or they drop massive filler content in their world. Two games that I'm thinking of right now, Red Dead Redemption and Infamous. The Infamous games have terrible quest structure. It's so repetitive. You do the same things over and over and over. It's lazy design to fill their world in.

Red Dead Redemption is mostly an amazing game. The problem I had with that game is sparse content. It's not repetitive or badly done, just not enough of it. You barely have any challenges out in the wild other than a few treasure/hunting challenges and side-quests are few and far between. It's far too desolate in the world(RDR is still an awesome game though). They also fall into the common problem where money becomes useless at the halfway point. Why do I need to hunt and trade pelts for money when I have nothing to buy? This is where I think DAO/DA2 did a good job. Economy. You spend money until the end of the game. You have a reason to find trasure and sell it for those legendary vendor items...

I think it's important Bioware realizes this if they decide to go with a much bigger level design. You definitely can get TOO BIG with your level design. Especially a game focused on narrative. When I'm exploring off the beaten path, I need incentive to do so. Looking at beautiful vistas is nice but I want to be rewarded doing that too. I don't want everything to feel like I'm on rails.

DAO's level design in some areas was often long and boring. It felt so linear but you didn't really have much opportunity to go off the paths and do some discovery. I think this is why I didn't enjoy the Deep Roads/Fade sections. They felt long, boring, and almost like I'm forced to go down that path...

Modifié par deuce985, 20 octobre 2012 - 09:53 .

[rapscallioness]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

@rapscallioness

An archievement for finding a hidden path is a good reward for players who like to complete a game perfect.

Also hidden paths that are a shorcut to get from A to B could be a thing that is easily implemented in a more open area. Especially when an area needs to be revisited. Clues about that could be given by the questgiver for example and the player still needs to find it. Or it will open as a reward for solving a quest for an NPC and s/he will tell you about it.

Yes, yes and yes.

Finding shortcuts for an area we have to revisit is awesome. And quest givers could definitely give clues. Heck, even one of our companions. Maybe they know the area. Why can't they chime in w/some info. If we're running around the woods just outside of Orlais, I would very much appreciate Cassandra having something to add the convo.

[GloriousDame]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

ArinTheirinCousland wrote...

I understand that there are resources that are used to make all these races available to us, 
but BW/DA choose the likes of MULTIPLAYER over THIS? That is wrong.

Not all zots are the same.  I can almost guarantee you there was never any point at which BioWare had to choose between a fixed race protagonist and multiplayer.


I should (edit) point out the differences in DAO.  In DAO you had racial chocie as well as origins.  This had consequences in terms of resources as well.  Each origin and race's impact on the narrative had to be minimized otherwise you'd start multiplying the amount of variation you'd need for any given situation by the number of possible combinations of options for each one.  That's why the impact of your race and origin during and after Ostagar was limited.  Hence Fergus disappears for pretty much the entire game, just to point out one example.

"Choose" was the wrong word, sorry. I meant that of the pool of limited resources the team had, that they used resources on MP, but not on origins/race. Does that make sense?
There was plenty of dialogue that reflected your origin after Ostagar (also true if you play as a Mage Hawke in DA2, just not as much).

Upsettingshorts wrote....

That doesn't guarantee the DA team will have the same issues.
What if the background options include things like "ex-Templar" or "Circle Mage" or "Apostate?"  Those things would matter
to the story, and could come up a lot.  That's speculation on my part,
but it demonstrates that a background need not necessarily be so...
detached and irrelevant.  

True enough, I'll admit. But what about them not being playable, like in Origins? I would have at least liked more of a connection with my character's history (and, in turn, my character herself/himself).

I do hope you're right, though.

[BioFan (Official)]

Mike: customization is going to be bigger than Dragon age origins. Follower customization etc. #DA3


YAY!!! :DDDDDDDDD

[Ilidan_DA]

No elf, dwarf protagonist. Damn.

[Hrungr]

WardenWade wrote...

dheer wrote...

Hrungr wrote...

motomotogirl wrote...

Hrungr wrote...
DA3: You can only play as human.

Bah!

Yeah I can't even believe how much this blows. My interest in the game just plummeted 

Yeah, this is definitely the first big letdown I've heard for DA3.

Indeed. This is one of the things I was hoping they would fix in the next game. Being forced to play another boring human. Yay. 

I guess I won't be buying DA3...  It didn't hurt to stump for it, and I think many more people than Bioware expected supported the idea   Races for DA4, then   It sounds as though the origins will be non-playable Mass Effect style...hopefully that will provide a sense of variety and significant difference for everyone, as well as replayability.  I do like the possibility for different kinds of mages, at least.

And I like the idea that my city elf Warden might appear again very much

Human-only PC won't be a dealbreaker for me, but still... it's pretty disheartening.

I'm also really looking forward to seeing my (Dalish) Warden again, though I know some people are worried how their Warden-as-an-NPC might be portrayed. I'm feeling some (misplaced?) confidence it'll be worth it.

I'm actually hoping the Warden is putting together an Illuminati-esque group with Hawke and some other powerful figures.

Modifié par Hrungr, 20 octobre 2012 - 09:58 .

[BioFan (Official)]

I'm just hoping for some seriously good choices for back story. If we can't play them, they should be pretty important in the game!!!