77 réponses à ce sujet

[hexaligned]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Given that David actually responds to things like this, I have to wonder what it's like to work with him on a daily basis. It would either be incredible, because he's awesome, or depressing, because of the world in which he's forced to live.

He seems to have a healthy sense of humor about himself.  I don't know how else he could tolerate the BSN.  Maybe in typical writer fashion he's just drunk off his ass 90% of the time.

[TheJediSaint]

relhart wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Given that David actually responds to things like this, I have to wonder what it's like to work with him on a daily basis. It would either be incredible, because he's awesome, or depressing, because of the world in which he's forced to live.

He seems to have a healthy sense of humor about himself.  I don't know how else he could tolerate the BSN.  Maybe in typical writer fashion he's just drunk off his ass 90% of the time.

He has cats.  If he can tolerate the mecurial moods and self-importantance of felines, then dealing with BSN posters is a piece of cake.

[Volus Warlord]

I support getting friend zoned in DA3!

[Zevais]

Volus Warlord wrote...

I support getting friend zoned in DA3!

I second.

[Mr Fixit]

David Gaider wrote...


Wow.

Sorry, but that link... sure, let's reduce the characters to broad categories, and then if we squint hard enough it'll look like they actually fit in those categories (when, let's face it, many of them don't with any but the most cursory examination). And this is supposed to be profound information to whom, I wonder?

They're called archetypes. If you try hard enough, you can make any character fit into one. Someone breaks out the word 'cliche' in this context as if they've said something meaningful, as if the lack of archetypes would be either better or even possible.

I'm not going to stand here and suggest that any character we've written at BioWare is a model of brilliant originality... but if someone's going to criticize a piece of writing it would be excellent if they could manage to summon up a critique that manages to do more than provide the shocking discovery that archetypes exist. That would be nice, and thank you.

/end diatribe

If there's one aspect of BioWare games I've always enjoyed, it's the characters. That's pretty much your trademark.

[AtreiyaN7]

I take issue with the claim that they're cardboard cut-out cliches. Not one DA character is worse, more shallow or more one-dimensional than the ones in the two books (which shall remain unnamed) that I've recently had to format again...grr...by an author who I loathe.

This guy doesn't know when to quit freaking adding more text...but I digress. In comparison to this - grr - author's - grr - characters, the DA:O and DA2 ones seem, for the most part, to have more complexity and depth on the whole. While I'd like to see more dialogue from the various DA characters in any capacity, I don't have all that much of a problem with the how things play out in a friendship-based relationship with the DA characters. I would never have described Sten as shallow, and his relationship with the Warden was one based on friendship and respect.

Modifié par AtreiyaN7, 25 septembre 2012 - 12:52 .

[Nashimura]

I quite like Gamesradar at times but that article is terrible - David Anderson does not fit into there description and all 3 of them were great characters, I dont remember Morrigan having daddy issues, Carver was also not bland...he was a jerk...i liked that.

Got to remember its just one persons opinion though...i dont think he is a fan of bioware, really didnt seem like one even with the start of the article mentioning he was....didnt seems like one at all.

Also DA2 did a better job of making romance options friends than any bioware game....i rank DA2 bottom of all bioware games but it did do some things better than Origins (which i place right at the top) no matter how much people want to deny it. 

Modifié par Nashimura, 25 septembre 2012 - 12:56 .

[iSignIn]

But... but... think about all the players who are unable to have sex otherwise! The only way they can do it is virtually! Through these games!

[Il Divo]

iakus wrote...

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

It's not the only one.

Cardboard cut out cliches. All of them.

Well that link was good for a laugh.

The only ones I thought were even remotely connected was Grunt and Black Whirlwind.  The rest might as well have been a random collection of screenshots of Bioware characters, for all the resemblence they had.

It's actually funny that they didn't do a Canderous/Wrex comparison, given their very similar backstories/character developments in each respective game. I might have taken that more seriously than a Grunt/Canderous comparison.

Not that I really care anyway. Bioware characters remain awesome, regardless of their level of originality.

Alistair and Morrigan> everyone else.

Modifié par Il Divo, 25 septembre 2012 - 12:59 .

[mousestalker]

As for friendship, while romance is lovely, friendship is magic. So if we want Bioware to pony up in giving us the friends we should have, we need to grab the issue by the mane and saddle up. Otherwise, we'll be left out of the whole herd of issues that they are dealing with.

[TheBlackBaron]

I'm not even gonna say it.

[Volus Warlord]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

I'm not even gonna say it.

Say it. Friends can be honest with each other.

[robertm2]

i feel you op. but i felt like origins did this quite well. i either cared about the characters deeply or i didnt like them at all much like real life. the real key to this is having and extensive amount of dialogue more of which opens up depending on how much that companion likes or hates you. that way they stop being digital characters and start being people. da2 failed on this big time mainly because of the lack of character development and dialogue between companions.

[Direwolf0294]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

It's not the only one.

Cardboard cut out cliches. All of them.

I've seen that article before and it's really, really poor. There are just so many issues with it.

For example, the awkward hottie. I can sort of see why people may compare Liara and Merrill, though personally I think Liara is more soft spoken than awkward and when she is awkward it tends to be a different sort of awkward than Merrill, but why thte heck is Mission listed there? She wasn't awkward at all. She was this young, anti authority character who always spoke her mind, loudly, and wasn't affraid of anyone. It's like the person who made the list hasn't even played the game and just put her on there because she's blue like Liara.

Also, as was already said, arch types exist, deal with it. If you can't then you need to stop paying attention to stories because I guarantee you, you'll never find a character that isn't similar to other characters done before and doesn't fit into some sort of arch type.

As for the OP's original thing about friendships, friendships are dealt with fine in BioWare games, I don't know why anyone would think they're not. In the Mass Effect series I played a femShep who romanced Liara. Despite romancing Liara over other crew members, the relationships I had with those crew members was still really indepth and meaningful. Though I initially didn't care for Garrus he became my best buddie as the series progressed and that friendship was probably more interestingly developed than the romance I took with Liara. In the DA:O playthrough I did with a female Warden I was of course never allowed to romance Morrigan, yet my character was still able to have a really strong and touching friendship with her.

Being entirely honest, the friendship paths in BioWare games are probably far more developed than the romance paths are, which is part of the reason I'm always calling for romances to be given more development.

Also, becoming good friends with a companion before romancing them doesn't make sense. First up, you do sort of become friends with them before you romance them. Secondly, that's just not the way relationships work. That's why the term friend zone exists. The fact is, for both genders, if you don't make your intentions clear early on they'll think you're not interested in that sort of relationship and move onto someone else. Having a close friendship with someone actually hurts your chances of ever having a romantic relationship with them.

[PsychoBlonde]

I think at least some of the reason that the companions in DA2 came off awkwardly was that the writers were feeling their way a bit with some unfamiliar territory.  It's a very different proposition to write when you don't have an overall unifiying "save the world" plot to explain why all these people are hanging out together.  Some of it worked, some of it didn't.

I think one big mistake was in having flirt options in your very first conversations with with certain companions, but not having flirt options scattered all over the game so you could just play a flirty character.  It made those initial flirts really, really awkward, especially in the cases (Fenris) when the line was intended to be a bit awkward.

So, in that sense, I'd support the idea of FIRST establish this person as a member of the party, THEN you can have the flirting.  This alone will make the companions feel deeper, I think.

So I wouldn't say "friendship is more important", but "this person needs to have a reason why they're hanging around" needs to precede any question of romance OR friendship.

Well, unless you guys decide to write a companion who joins the party BECAUSE they have the hots for the PC.  Which could work, but you'd have to set it up--meet them several times, they flirt with you, maybe you flirt back (because you're in a flirty mood), and after a while they start suggesting they could be more of a help to you and actually join up with you.  Which gets them in trouble.  That could actually be a fun and interesting and unusual companion.

Actually, that might have been a MUCH better setup for Izzy than the whole "I'm in trouble" thing--the first 3 or 4 times you go to the Hanged Man, she flirts with you, buys you a drink, chats a bit, maybe tries to talk you into bed.  Then, you see her arguing with those guys and the fight.  THEN she asks you to help her out with her little problem, instead of "Hi total stranger, come watch my back for me".

OR, maybe you came over from Ferelden to Kirkwall ON HER SHIP, so you have a prior acquaintance (if they'd, you know, actually included the whole scene where you go to Gwaren and book passage), she develops a liking for you during the voyage, runs into you again, you find out her ship got trashed in the storm, she asks you to help her out . . .

Don't rush the introductions in DA3.  You don't have to drop the PC instantly into the middle of the companion's personal strife--we CAN meet them and talk to them a few times before they join up with us.  Yes, people want to get to their personal favorite companion ASAP, and companions introduced later in the game can feel less important and more shallow/superficial.  But doing a "hurry hurry must introduce all companions right away!" can be just as bad.  I think the framed narrative thing may actually have HURT you guys because a lot of your very best exposition opportunities got bypassed.  Actually, I may start a thread about that.

Fenris, on the other hand, would have worked a lot better IMO if the whole business with him hunting down Danarius took place during Act I, and you could flirt with him but he'd be kind of awkwardly horrified and brush you off.  After that's all over, he's kind of at a loss for what to do next and that's when he (gradually) becomes amenable to the idea of romance, has his whole "oh, no, I remember!" scare, bails out, and if you want to pursue him then you'd have to kind of gradually win him back by helping him set up his own life to the point where he's comfortable with you.

So, maybe part of the problem was also trying to distribute the companion quests evenly across the 3-act structure of the game instead of pacing them more as suited that particular character.

Modifié par PsychoBlonde, 25 septembre 2012 - 01:40 .

[bleetman]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

It's not the only one.

Cardboard cut out cliches. All of them.

You know my favourite part of that? I mean, beyond the whole 'at least half of them don't actually fit what they're being described as, what the balls are they talking about' thing, obviously. It's the last one. The last one cracks me the heck up.

It takes someone with a serious axe to grind to compare Legion to HK-47 and conclude they're the same character. I guess all the stuff about not understanding organics but wishing to, and all forms of life having the right to self determinate was actually some clever cover for 'haha fleshy meatbags'.

Modifié par bleetman, 25 septembre 2012 - 01:22 .

[jillabender]

PsychBlonde wrote…

I think at least some of the reason that the companions in DA2 came off awkwardly was that the writers were feeling their way a bit with some unfamiliar territory. It's a very different proposition to write when you don't have an overall unifiying "save the world" plot to explain why all these people are hanging out together. Some of it worked, some of it didn't.

[…]

So, maybe part of the problem was also trying to distribute the companion quests evenly across the 3-act structure of the game instead of pacing them more as suited that particular character.

I completely agree. I liked the companion characters in DA2, but I felt that the way they were presented created some difficulties, as I discussed in the "Top 5 Things" thread.

Modifié par jillabender, 25 septembre 2012 - 02:10 .

[Darimaru]

I think Garrus's friendship was pretty solid.

[Il Divo]

Am I the only one who's still having trouble getting past Mission as an "awkward hottie"? Did the writer of this article never talk to her?

[SafetyShattered]

TheJediSaint wrote...

relhart wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Given that David actually responds to things like this, I have to wonder what it's like to work with him on a daily basis. It would either be incredible, because he's awesome, or depressing, because of the world in which he's forced to live.

He seems to have a healthy sense of humor about himself.  I don't know how else he could tolerate the BSN.  Maybe in typical writer fashion he's just drunk off his ass 90% of the time.

He has cats.  If he can tolerate the mecurial moods and self-importantance of felines, then dealing with BSN posters is a piece of cake.

So so true. Cats are evil.

[ohnotherancor]

Il Divo wrote...

Am I the only one who's still having trouble getting past Mission as an "awkward hottie"? Did the writer of this article never talk to her?

Yeah, my first thought when I saw that was "...But she was fourteen!"
However, I have seen lots of posts from people who wanted to get in Mission's pants so I wasn't terribly surprised (Was pretty , though).

I'm having lots of trouble with the comparisons between Grunt and Canderous. The much more obvious parallel is Wrex and Canderous. I'm not seeing how he equated the former pair.

It's a poor article overall.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Given that David actually responds to things like this, I have to wonder what it's like to work with him on a daily basis. It would either be incredible, because he's awesome, or depressing, because of the world in which he's forced to live.

I bet it'd be incredible. I've seen David speak in person and briefly met him at a Comic-Con panel about diversity in fiction. He was very pleasant. And even more awesome than he is on the forums.

At any rate, I'm glad he's posting regularly here. He's a cool dude.

Modifié par x0hn0th3r4nc0rx, 25 septembre 2012 - 03:15 .

[nightscrawl]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Given that David actually responds to things like this, I have to wonder what it's like to work with him on a daily basis. It would either be incredible, because he's awesome, or depressing, because of the world in which he's forced to live.

Hopefully you're overestimating the amount of impact these crazy forum threads and other internet garbage have on him. Or any of them for that matter.

I don't see archetypes or even cliches (though they are different) as bad anyway. They are used because they resonate with the audience. One of those listed on that site was The Useless Mentor. I certainly don't think Duncan was useless. He not only recruited our PC, but served as the only "real" Grey Warden we knew for most of the game until Riordan showed up, being a model for what the Wardens can and should be. Two of the most beloved mentors in film are Mickey and Miyagi-san. I don't see people criticizing Rocky or The Karate Kid for that. Hell, the legend of Robin Hood is FULL of archetypes that are used to this day. Look how popular that is.

Bioware really can't win though. DAO concerned a "big bad" that was a threat to the world; a very common theme. So they went with something different for DA2. A more "personal" story. They got flack for both.

The Hierophant wrote...

I think what Epic means is that  not romancing a character leaves out key dialogue which is the meat, and potatoes to a character's psyche. The unromanced character is less developed as a whole, and feels generic.

I think this depends on the character to be honest. I don't think it adds a great deal to Anders's character because you can either offer him support (friend) or conflict (rival) without having a romance, and the result of the friend or rival path will be the same for him as a character. Nothing is really revealed about him, is my point. IMO Anders is anything but generic.

I would say that the statement is true for Isabela and Fenris though -- I've never romanced Merrill so I wouldn't know about her. With Isabela and Fenris, perhaps because their romances have to wait until Act 3 to be finalized, seem to be fraught with much more conflict, and internal as well as external struggles.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 25 septembre 2012 - 07:10 .

[terdferguson123]

I really do not see where the OP was coming from. Varric was the best character in DA2, hands down, and he was not a romance option. Garrus is my favorite character in Mass Effect, he has some of the best friendship dialogue in any game ever, and I didn't romance him nor did I feel the need to in order to get the most out of his character. Sorry OP, but you aren't making any sense.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Frak sex scenes. Frak romances.

I want well-written characters I can be epic friends with. Or rival.

[Foolsfolly]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...
It's not the only one.

Cardboard cut out cliches. All of them.

Aggressive Psychoic... Canderous Ordo? The greatest mercenary character BioWare's ever done. Who's in the middle of a crisis of identity and beginning to realize that his 'glorious' past of murdering people for the Mandalorians was deplorable? A man who's grown up thinking wholesale slaughter proves strength and provides pride having that slowly stripped away until he wonders aloud if he's even a Mandalorian anymore?

That's aggressive psychoic? Are you sure that isn't The Man Haunted By His Past? Or some other title you can make up? Which Black Whirlwind would fit in as well. Not Grunt. He has a past he can't connect with (it was imprinted in his brain when he was grown in a test tube through future super science) and he has to find a reason to care about his heratiage. In fact none of them are exactly psychoic character.

That list was ****.