274 réponses à ce sujet

[Dhiro]

LPPrince wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...
I'm perplexed by the notion that the writers are steepling their fingers and cackling maniacally over the deaths of characters.
They created them, after all. I dare say they care about them more than any of us.

<snip>

Only a nerd will find that funny, and holy hell I laughed aloud.

Considering that the Harry Potter books are insanely popular and how ASOIAF is being inserted into the mainstream media thanks to the series I don't think you need to be part of the nerd culture to appreciate the picture.

Or something.

[Xilizhra]

RinjiRenee wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
A good start: don't write something just because you didn't want there to be any sort of "best" outcome that would somehow deter people from making other choices. I mean, people deliberately kill off their siblings for roleplaying reasons still; I don't think this is as big a problem as you seemed to.

So what you're saying is that you want things to be black and white, without any of that pesky "grey" area?

Well, what if you had the option to have Gascard's blood magic around to save Leandra, just in an... altered state, in the hopes that that body could be repaired into something more functional? Surely plenty of people would want to just kill her anyway out of their own views of mercy.

[Quicksilver26]

Lithuasil wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
I'd just like to see a reconciliation, I guess. Or a happy family. Variety. And all that.

Yep. Variety is good. And your gut's probably sore... time to move onto the shoulder.

Just as long as you leave the kittens alone! 

here here don't touch the kittens 

[Rinji the Bearded]

David Gaider wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
I'd just like to see a reconciliation, I guess. Or a happy family. Variety. And all that.

Yep. Variety is good. And your gut's probably sore... time to move onto the shoulder.

Walt Disney himself said that a good kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

Aw yeee bringing this conversation full circle

[TheJediSaint]

David Gaider wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
I'd just like to see a reconciliation, I guess. Or a happy family. Variety. And all that.

Yep. Variety is good. And your gut's probably sore... time to move onto the shoulder.

And shoulder pads too it seems.  I may as well start wearing a helmet as well.  

Modifié par TheJediSaint, 25 septembre 2012 - 04:08 .

[LPPrince]

I'm sensing passive aggressive snarkiness and yikes, I'm a little scared by it.

Because honestly, I'd like to have something hold together like family in DA3 too.

I felt DA2 took negativity way too hard, it felt like everything lead to nothing good. Even the supposed "family dynamic" we were going to experience led to three family members dying by the end of Act 2 or two family members dying and one being exiled.

I want SOMETHING to be positive and stay that way from start to finish. Romance, family, those would be nice. I'd like to escape negativity in real life familial relations and get into a game where our family stays together and sticks together throughout it all, not get killed off so quick.

But hey, perhaps that's just me.

[David Gaider]

Lithuasil wrote...
Just as long as you leave the kittens alone! 

I might kill off one kitten... so long as you get to raise his traumatized sibling, until he grows up and becomes Batman. FOR VENGEANCE.

[Xilizhra]

Well, there is, of course, just the possibility of not getting punched/kicked/otherwise physically battered by the writers at all, just giving us some story possibilities and seeing whether we work through them in a manner that brings us pain or otherwise, depending on our choices. But that seems to be unpopular.

I'm sensing passive aggressive snarkiness and yikes, I'm a little scared by it.

Because honestly, I'd like to have something hold together like family in DA3 too.

I felt DA2 took negativity way too hard, it felt like everything lead to nothing good. Even the supposed "family dynamic" we were going to experience led to three family members dying by the end of Act 2 or two family members dying and one being exiled.

I want SOMETHING to be positive and stay that way from start to finish. Romance, family, those would be nice. I'd like to escape negativity in real life familial relations and get into a game where our family stays together and sticks together throughout it all, not get killed off so quick.

But hey, perhaps that's just me.

Also, this.

[LPPrince]

Dhiro wrote...

LPPrince wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...
I'm perplexed by the notion that the writers are steepling their fingers and cackling maniacally over the deaths of characters.
They created them, after all. I dare say they care about them more than any of us.

<snip>

Only a nerd will find that funny, and holy hell I laughed aloud.

Considering that the Harry Potter books are insanely popular and how ASOIAF is being inserted into the mainstream media thanks to the series I don't think you need to be part of the nerd culture to appreciate the picture.

Or something.

People these days hardly give credit to the author of the books they read. Hell, a ton of people who read novels don't know what the author of the books they read even look like.

That can spread to gaming, movies, all things really. But thats off topic.

[Punahedan]

David Gaider wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
I'd just like to see a reconciliation, I guess. Or a happy family. Variety. And all that.

Yep. Variety is good. And your gut's probably sore... time to move onto the shoulder.

*Dons some shoulder pads and a helmet* BRING IT.

Edit: 

TheJediSaint wrote...

And shoulder pads too it seems.  I may as well start wearing a helmet as well.  

And I totally got ninja'd on the contents of this comment. I guess I'm not the only one preparing.

Modifié par Hawkeyed Cai Li, 25 septembre 2012 - 04:12 .

[Vandicus]

TheJediSaint wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
I'd just like to see a reconciliation, I guess. Or a happy family. Variety. And all that.

Yep. Variety is good. And your gut's probably sore... time to move onto the shoulder.

And shoulder pads too it seems.  I may as well start wearing a helmet as well.  

You forgot the most important part, the cup. From what I hear that is a bad place to be kicked for women too.

[Rinji the Bearded]

David Gaider wrote...

Lithuasil wrote...
Just as long as you leave the kittens alone! 

I might kill off one kitten... so long as you get to raise his traumatized sibling, until he grows up and becomes Batman. FOR VENGEANCE.

Ser Batman a Lot for DA3 Companion

[Lithuasil]

David Gaider wrote...

Lithuasil wrote...
Just as long as you leave the kittens alone! 

I might kill off one kitten... so long as you get to raise his traumatized sibling, until he grows up and becomes Batman. FOR VENGEANCE.

[Wulfram]

David Gaider wrote...

Even so, I'm curious why people tend to run with the assumption that we would repeat the same story elements. Yes, parents tend to be taken out of the picture à la the Hero's Journey, but insofar as we writers are concerned we'll move on to some other body part once the original gets too numb from all the punching. So asking us to not write the same story elicits a response which is generally "...okay?" Asking us to not punch you in the gut gets you a pat on the head and an "aww, muffin."

It's easier to give feedback on the stuff you have done rather than the stuff you might do.

And by you we tend to mean Bioware, which means you're credited with more repetition than if we were thinking of you as David Gaider or the Dragon Age team

[TheJediSaint]

Vandicus wrote...

Edit: respectful snip

You forgot the most important part, the cup. From what I hear that is a bad place to be kicked for women too.

Yeah, probably don't want to escalate it too much futher.   If I try to armor myself too well, David Gaider may start using a hocky stick...or a semi truck.

Modifié par TheJediSaint, 25 septembre 2012 - 04:21 .

[Xilizhra]

You could try punching back.

[Vandicus]

Lithuasil wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Lithuasil wrote...
Just as long as you leave the kittens alone! 

I might kill off one kitten... so long as you get to raise his traumatized sibling, until he grows up and becomes Batman. FOR VENGEANCE.

Even better, make them a triplet! The eldest brother dies, and the remaining two brothers(twins if we don't want to get into those younger vs elder brother unpleasant implications) each take their own path of darkness. One becomes the batman, and the other seeks revenge on the world that took away everything from him.

[Xewaka]

TheJediSaint wrote...
((Quote pyramid snipped))
Yeah, probably don't want to escalate it too much futher.   If I try to armor myself too well, David Gaider may start using a hocky stick...or a semi truck.

The stairs are more than enough, specially with the added weight of the armor.

Modifié par Xewaka, 25 septembre 2012 - 04:22 .

[Vandicus]

TheJediSaint wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

TheJediSaint wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
I'd just like to see a reconciliation, I guess. Or a happy family. Variety. And all that.

Yep. Variety is good. And your gut's probably sore... time to move onto the shoulder.

And shoulder pads too it seems.  I may as well start wearing a helmet as well.  

You forgot the most important part, the cup. From what I hear that is a bad place to be kicked for women too.

Yeah, probably don't want to escalate it too much futher.   If I try to armor myself too well, David Gaider may start using a hocky stick...or a semi truck.

If he can hit me with an emotional semi truck I will be very impressed. So far the best character death I've seen was Mordin Solus from ME3. I cried, and I hated the guy in ME2 for his lack of repentance. 

[LPPrince]

Let me touch on the problem I had with DA2's killing of the Hawke family-

There was no pay off. No positive pay off.

As an example of how to do it right, in Borderlands 2, a character a lot of people cared about in the first game got offed unexpectedly.

This caused brutal anger in me and my buddies as we played, but not at the developers for writing it in-

At the murderer himself, the guy behind it all.

And when we got to the end and offed the bad guy, we felt vindicated.

Even better was the credits, in which there's a slideshow of drawn art, and once piece shows a character getting a NEW friend, to replace the one he lost.

I actually began to cry a little. Shed a few tears, I'll admit.

AT BORDERLANDS 2 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

Now, you can't replace family of course, but my point is, negativity is just that- a negative.

There has to be positivity to balance it out.

DAO was great at this- no matter how negative the game got, there was SOMETHING to shoot for, something positive, and you could feel that all that negativity was worth it in the end.

But DA2 screwed that up- you went through NONSTOP negativity, straight out of the gate and all the way through to the end, but for what?

For nothing. No payoff, no happy ending, nothing.

If a family member has to be killed off AGAIN in later installments in the DA franchise, I'd rather there be some sort of redemption plot line that follows it towards the end of the game(Human Noble avenging parents by killing Arl Howe), than simply having his/her family killed and being unable to do anything about it(DA2 Carver/Bethany and Leandra).

[Rinji the Bearded]

Xilizhra wrote...

You could try punching back.

Again, don't buy the game...

[Vandicus]

LPPrince wrote...



There was no pay off. No positive pay off.


For nothing. No payoff, no happy ending, nothing.

I am of the opinion that this was what they were going for. For me its a breath of fresh air from the stereotypical happy ending rpg(I believe a significant member of the Bioware team who is no longer with them, Brent Knowles maybe?, wrote an article explaining his viewpoint about how stories should end and he favored the DA:O happy ending one) which saturates the market.

For me dark story>tale of vengeance>happy story

This comes down to a matter of personal preference, not one type of writing being objectively superior to the other. I would posit that people in general, aka the market, favors the happy story though.

[Sylvius the Mad]

David Gaider wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
If you're required to do any gut-punching, make it actually intelligent. Leandra's death was not intelligent. Bodahn's suggestion to wait around so that the killer can have his way with her was extraordinarily stupid. Going to Gascard DuPuis is far smarter... yet somehow, despite being able to get to him much more quickly than you would have been able to do anything by waiting until after dark, you still arrive at the exact same, wrong, time. This is not intelligent, clever, or good writing. This is clumsily applied, pointless brutality that instilled no sadness in me whatsoever, only rage at Bioware personally.

Thanks for the feedback. Next time we'll try not to write something so blatantly stupid. I'll mark it on my "things to do" list.

There was a seed of valuable feedback, there.

If you give us a mystery to solve, let us solve it.  Do not make us wait for you to tell us we're solving it.

[Xilizhra]

RinjiRenee wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

You could try punching back.

Again, don't buy the game...

It's within my rights to talk still, yes?

[Rinji the Bearded]

Xilizhra wrote...

RinjiRenee wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

You could try punching back.

Again, don't buy the game...

It's within my rights to talk still, yes?

Of course it is.

But you're acting as if anything we say here is really having any sort of sway on a video game's narrative?

Modifié par RinjiRenee, 25 septembre 2012 - 04:30 .