113 réponses à ce sujet

[Darth Death]

Origins all the way.

[draken-heart]

three things:

1) Bhelen (Spelling)/Harrowmont-not only could Harrowmont be lying aboout what your father really said (If dwarf noble), you can actually side with Bhelen (Likely misspelled) no poblem, unless you stick with the "He got me exiled" explanation.
2) the Circle of Magi-as a mage you can easily agree with destroying the circle using the "The circle is gone anyways" explanation.
3) Howe-This is the only thing the human noble and City Elf influence and the human noble gets it more.

all-in-all, I'd say leave origins out of the game unless they can be done right.

[Iakus]

I liked the Origin stories. I don't believe they're needed in every game. But I hope Bioware uses them again. In DA3 or other future games.

[hobbit of the shire]

I like the origins and it is a considerable factor in persuading me to do more replays. I'm not so keen just playing a different class. But yeah, more effect on the whole game would've been better. More importantly, though, is whatever origin or class you play needs to work with the game. To have an apostate roaming around Kirkwall did not make sense to me. In DAO, an elf wandering around with weapons should have met more resistance.  So, whether there are origins or not, the character has to make sense in that world and the interactions need to reflect it.

Modifié par hobbit_of_the_shire, 21 septembre 2012 - 05:23 .

[LolaLei]

I'd love DA3 to have some sort of origin prologue. Maybe class origins that are unique to each class (mage, rogue and warrior). I'm hoping that we get some sort of playable prologue this time round, so that we can experience a small glimpse into our protagonists life and get a feel for the controls and environment before getting thrown into all the action.

That's something I really missed in DA2. It would have been interesting to start out with Hawke in Lothering going about his daily life, establishing the bond with his/her family etc before sh!t hit the fan. I wanted to see exactly what Hawke and his family lost to the blight. I absolutely adored the way they introduced our Warden in DA:O and really felt for the minor NPC's that we met during the origins, especially when some of them would turn up later in the game after something horrible had happened to them. Running into Tamlen again after he'd been mashed up by the Eluvian was heartbreaking.

Modifié par LolaLei, 21 septembre 2012 - 05:31 .

[hobbit of the shire]

LolaLei wrote...
It would have been interesting to start out with Hawke in Lothering going about his daily life, establishing the bond with his/her family etc before sh!t hit the fan. I wanted to see exactly what Hawke and his family lost to the blight.

[DA2 spoiler!]

Definitely.  I felt no love lost when Bethany died since we didn't establish a bond.  And I wanted to wring Carver's neck from the very beginning.  Actually having an origin (and in this case, this SINGLE origin) would have made the family death more effective.  Actually having seen Carver in a brotherly way (or maybe he never was) and then see his growing negative attitude towards me would have made the relationship strain more evident.  OMG, how can I hate my brother but how can I NOT hate him....

So whether multiple origins or not, we need a real exposition.

[LolaLei]

hobbit_of_the_shire wrote...

LolaLei wrote...
It would have been interesting to start out with Hawke in Lothering going about his daily life, establishing the bond with his/her family etc before sh!t hit the fan. I wanted to see exactly what Hawke and his family lost to the blight.

[DA2 spoiler!]

Definitely.  I felt no love lost when Bethany died since we didn't establish a bond.  And I wanted to wring Carver's neck from the very beginning.  Actually having an origin (and in this case, this SINGLE origin) would have made the family death more effective.  Actually having seen Carver in a brotherly way (or maybe he never was) and then see his growing negative attitude towards me would have made the relationship strain more evident.  OMG, how can I hate my brother but how can I NOT hate him....

So whether multiple origins or not, we need a real exposition.

Yeah, when I played DA2 for the first time I felt nothing for Bethany/Carver when they got killed at the beginning because I'd never met them prior to the action. I actually felt more for the DA:O minor NPC's from the DA:O origins. Of course, after I'd played the DA2 a few times I felt bad/sad for the sibling that died, but that's only because I got to know their personalities through previous playthroughs.

Modifié par LolaLei, 21 septembre 2012 - 05:35 .

[KENNY4753]

Dalish Origin is all I care about

[Tommyspa]

Preferred: Origins for all playable races.

Acceptable/a nice perk: Origins for the background of Human only characters.

[Sylvius the Mad]

If the alternative is one fixed background, then yes, origins.

If the alternative is an undefined background, then no.

[SporkFu]

I enjoyed the the different origins alot, and I would love not only to see a return, but also even more and deeper origin-specific differences in how the game unfolds.

[Cylan Cooper]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

If the alternative is one fixed background, then yes, origins.

If the alternative is an undefined background, then no.

A bit off topic, but I'm genuinely curious as to how you roleplayed your Hawke in Dragon Age 2, as someone who has read your posts over the years.

[Sable Rhapsody]

Maybe. I thought the origins in DA:O were a great idea, but a little unevenly implemented. For example, Cousland gets a lot of backstory with Howe, right hand man to the series' human antagonist. The two dwarves, city elf, and the mage get to go back to their places of origin. The Dalish origin was IMO pretty weak--better once the DA2 connection is there, but for DA:O as a standalone game, it had less tie-ins to the rest of the plot as the other origins. And I thought the writing quality was a bit patchy too.

[Iosev]

I personally would rather see two dramatically different playthroughs of a mage and non-mage (rogue and warrior), instead of six origin stories that played similarly past the beginning. Dragon Age 2 did a little bit of this with the two siblings (and a few alterations here and there), but of course I would have loved to see more, such as a mage Hawke playthrough starting to diverge in the second act (e.g., being arrested and sent to the Gallows after the Deep Roads Expedition).

In addition, assuming that resources are limited, I would trade the return of origins for specializations that are more integrated into the story. For example, becoming a blood mage could involve a series of quests, which ultimately alters how certain companions and NPCs view your character and how the rest of the story plays out.

In general, I would prefer more differences across an entire playthrough, rather than a bunch of different tutorial areas that only affect a relatively small amount of dialogue and events in the game.

Modifié par arcelonious, 21 septembre 2012 - 06:21 .

[inko1nsiderate]

To me, the origin stories in DA:O make that game golden. Throughout the game the themes of choice and inevitability are there. Wynne remarks on how your choices ripple out and affect those around you, and then you play a few of the other origins and start to realize that the other origins show up in the game. You find the corpse of the poor dwarf, hear of the rich dwarf's fate, etc. And then it dawned on me. Duncan had a choice to go to several places before going to Ostagarr, but he had to go to at least one of them. The choice Duncan made IS the origin you choose. So the Warden rising was inevitable, but the choice you as a player makes is reflected in the narrative as a implied choice Duncan made. So the themes of inevitability and choice are woven so intimately in the game, that they even play out in the creation screen. I'm not sure it was intended, but it really elevates that game above other RPGs in my mind because of how they handled the Origins.

That being said, DA2 strikes me of falling on the inevitability side of things, and yet DA2's character creation reflects that as well. I'm guessing, based on the current talk of DA3, that it will fall further on the end of choice, and that the trilogy will get some thematic closure as the themes started in DA:O are explored in three parts with 3 different takes. But if DA3 does explore choice more heavily, I'm not so sure how origins would fit in.

TL;DR I'm torn.  I loved the Origins, but I think DA3 should explore the theme of choice more than DA:O, and that this makes origins problematic.

Modifié par inko1nsiderate, 21 septembre 2012 - 06:53 .

[Emma-Lath]

I loved origin stories but I did like have a family that stayed with you after your origin much better. If only we could have both

[Sable Rhapsody]

lala_lover wrote...

I loved origin stories but I did like have a family that stayed with you after your origin much better. If only we could have both

I suppose they could give each origin a unique family, but realistically, no.  The devs have too much stuff to do already without investing so much time and energy into a lot of content most players will never see.

[Gandalf-the-Fabulous]

mad_mac_hl wrote...

Yes absolutely 100%, because from an rpg perspective it helps ground your character in the story. It helps determine what your motivations are for doing what you do.

The character perhaps but not the player which is far more important. I believe that one of the most important parts of an RPG is to put the player in the character's shoes to not just be a witness to the events of the story but to take an active role in it, it is why I believe that it is far better to offer up a blank slate and have the player fill the role of a character of unknown origins in a foreign land as it puts the player and the character on the same terms, both know little to nothing about the world they are traveling through a neither have any prior relationships with any of the characters that currently ihabit it.
 
I guess it also explains why the amnesia angle works so well in games like Planescape Torment and the Witcher where the character already has a pre-defined background. 

[Gandalf-the-Fabulous]

I suppose the argument can also be made that the origin stories were probably the stand out feature of DA:O and what made it stand out from other RPGs and while I dont think DA:O was as great as many people made it out to be I do have to give the origins credit as they were a good introduction to the world and various aspects of it such as Dwarven politics and culture, the opression of mages and elves ect.

Still as a general rule I dont believe origin stories are suitable for most RPGs for reasons I have already stated.

[Robeus]

yay for origins

[cindercatz]

If you offer up a blank slate, your character simply becomes you, or you acting a part, not living in your character's headspace, but your own. That's exactly what I don't want in a character centric RPG. That's the biggest flaw in most classic rpgs (and I love rpgs in general). The ability to go so far into your characters personal motivations, beliefs, and individual experience is why DA:O is my favorite rpg ever made, on balance.

jsamlaw wrote...

What do you mean by "a past that you never actually experience"? All of the DA:O origins were actual game content you played through, not just read about at some future time. As for having "little control", that's an entirely subjective characterization of origin stories. For those players who actually role-play their characters, I would argue there was quite a bit of player choice in each of the origin stories. Granted, you end up in the same place regardless of your choices (recruited by Duncan), but how you got to that point can vary quite a bit.

Typically, choice doesn't matter in the ultimate ending of a BioWare game, but it does matter as far as the individual character development/role-play. I thought that the origin stories added tremendous depth and replayability to DA:O and hope to see them again in another BioWare game, be it DA3 or otherwise.

This.

And I hope we get origin stories, whether fully playable or even only selecting dialogue and story path, like a which-way adventure game, for the entirety of the rest of the series. The origins in DA:O were no novelty. They provided the deepest context for character roleplay I've ever seen in a RPG (especially playing them all), and the purely and simply best experience I've ever had in defining a player created character. Without them, DA:O wouldn't have been 1/100th as complex and rich an experience as it was. It would've been just another fantasy RPG, nothing so special.

It's kinda like DA2 if you hadn't played DA:O first. It's just another action adventure game with nice VA and a tone system to laugh with occasionally (or alternately be frustrated by, depending how wildly variant it might be from what you intended). Without DA:O, there is no real context for anything in Thedas. You'd just have dark magic against an overzealous christian analogue, with a few funny critter communities that you have no real understanding or context for. Without the origins and all the complexity they provide, the rest of DA:O and DA2 and whatever comes after lose their depth, including the ability to fully roleplay characters in that world.

So yes, origins are huge, real big giant huge, and we better see some form of them in DA3 and beyond, because that's the single greatest defining feature of Dragon Age.

Modifié par cindercatz, 22 septembre 2012 - 09:18 .

[Jerrybnsn]

I'm all for anything that will give extra playing time in a role playing game, and giving origin stories goes a long way towards setting up a prologue to the adventure you are about to imbark upon, even if it isn't quite relevent to the story, it's still relevent to allow the player to feel more immersion into the character they will role play.

I can't see the benefit of having just fixed stories to choose from for a background like ME. I usually forget what background I chose by the time I get through the first hour of game time because I had to learn what all the attack buttons, menues, skill leveling, map system were all about. I have a low level of memory retention, I guess.

Modifié par Jerrybnsn, 22 septembre 2012 - 09:20 .

[cindercatz]

Jerrybnsn wrote...

I'm all for anything that will give extra playing time in a role playing game, and giving origin stories goes a long way towards setting up a prologue to the adventure you are about to imbark upon, even if it isn't quite relevent to the story, it's still relevent to allow the player to feel more immersion into the character they will role play.

I can't see the benefit of having just fixed stories to choose from for a background. I usually forget what background I choose by the time I get through the first hour of game time because I had to learn was all the attack buttons, menues, skill leveling, map system is all about. I have a low level of memory retention, I guess.

Yeah, I see that sort of thing, like Mass Effect's, as the low rent version, where your character is essentially some version of yourself with added flavor, nothing close to the immersion provided by the DA:O origins. The origin system really is magic.

[panamakira]

Hells to the YAY. One of the top 5 things I'd like to see in DA3. I mean I understand if they'll like to have another hero so it's different in every game (I support this wholeheartedly) and even with a pre-determined story but having a least a couple of options in Origins would be something that would improve the game so much. Mainly because it adds re-playability to the game.

Would you believe I've only finished DA2 once? And really not because I hate DA2. I like it but even I know how not varied at all it becomes after finishing the game just once.

I finished DA:O 4 times. And even then I agree after Ostagar it was the same thing for every character but even so the fact that I could be an elf or a dwarf was great option when replaying the game.

[cindercatz]

Me too. I'm working on my sixth Origins playthrough (each over a hundred hours, or more that 200 for the first character), to only one and a quarter plays for DA2 so far (at a 40ish-50ish hour playthrough).

Sable Rhapsody wrote...

lala_lover wrote...

I loved origin stories but I did like have a family that stayed with you after your origin much better. If only we could have both

I suppose they could give each origin a unique family, but realistically, no.  The devs have too much stuff to do already without investing so much time and energy into a lot of content most players will never see.

We actually did have both in DA:O, depending which origin we played. Not as much family content as DA2 (what with the follower sibling), but that's actually not that hard to do for a multi-racial, multi origin family even. You're talking about self-modding characters of each race, just like DA2 but with elves and dwarves, and a few different lines here or there for the actors (if they were all some version of city dwelling Ferelden, so you don't have the accent issue). It wouldn't have been nearly so hard as it might seem. If they had stuck with all human, there were still easily six versions of that we could have had.

Modifié par cindercatz, 22 septembre 2012 - 09:31 .