10 réponses à ce sujet

[MillKill]

I find this feature unnecessary for Dragon Age. It does nothing but restrict writers heavily and prevent them from making characters from previous games too prominent. If they decide to ignore a decision for the sake of a better story, like Leliana's possible death, the forums scream bloody murder about retcons.

Just make a single set of choices canon. If you'd like to pretend that your previous choices are an AU what-if scenario, fine. The comics and novels took this approach. They turned out fine, because Gaider wasn't hamstrung about being ambiguous about whether Alistair was king or whether Wynne was alive. He simply went with the decisions that made for the best stories. Your savefiles where Alistair was a drunk, or Wynne died did not spontaneously delete themselves.

Baldur's Gate 2, which is often held up as Bioware's best game, completely ignored any decisions you made in the first game, even though you were playing the same character. A party from the previous game was made canon, even if you never recruited those characters or killed them. Somehow, the world kept spinning and the game was amazing.

Just let the writers pick the choices that make for the best story. That way, if they want to do a story about the Dark Ritual, they can. If they want to do a story involving Harrowmont being king, they can. Let's not restrict the writers into writing around previous our previous savegames. Let them make DA3 the best it can be by not putting in roadblocks that prevent them from telling the story they want to tell so that those who destroyed the ashes won't feel bad there wasn't a single line referencing how evil their ncharacter was. Plus, I don't want Sten to be prevented from being a prominent figure just because some people left him in Lothering.

Modifié par MillKill, 05 octobre 2012 - 09:54 .

[David Gaider]

There are indeed certain things that would be made much easier, story-wise, by simply establishing canon and proceeding from there. No doubt about that. It's the reason the vast majority of games don't have such continuuity between games, and arrange matters so that such continuuity wouldn't even be relevant.

Thing is, you'd lose something too. Yes, perhaps we'll never be able to take this to the ultimate point everyone imagines this to be-- where all those decisions branch out until they create a player's own personal storyline, completely divergent from everyone's else's and where every decision has complete relevance between games... but is that really necessary? Even if there are only select points of influence, that's really no different than in a single game itself. It's a question of maintaining the illusion.

Maybe someone feels that illusion hasn't been kept, and can't be kept unless their every decision is kept sacrosanct. And they feel that, if we can't do it, we shouldn't even try. I get that, and there are certainly days when I feel exactly the same myself. But there are also those for whom the illusion makes the world and the story so much more theirs, and that's not something they're apt to get anywhere else. They don't necessarily want to be told a story so much as they want to be part of it. Isn't that the ideal, here?

Ultimately, regardless of the arguments, it's a trigger that Dragon Age has already pulled. I suppose one could argue we could un-pull it, as we've done with some other pretty fundamental points of design... but I'd say this goes beyond game mechanics and is more of a promise which would be pretty hard to unmake now.

There are plans for how we're going to do the import thing, which I'm not at liberty to discuss. All I'll say is that the goal is to do it better... not to scrap it.

Modifié par David Gaider, 06 octobre 2012 - 03:02 .

[Allan Schumacher]

What's worse is that for peope who didn't play Awakenings, they don't get even get Howe's appearance? Do they? I played Dragon Age 2 with a save import that just had Origins on it in one playthrough, and Howe never even showed up. So...we're also TAKING OUT CONTENT by using imports.

Imports done perfectly would require content to be removed, so I don't think this is a very strong argument, since imports would just be akin to choices and choices done well within a single game should still in some way remove/alter content.

[David Gaider]

Snypy wrote...
What's the point of making decisions if those decisions should be completely invalidated later on?

Because the primary reasons for decisions to be put into a game is not so they can be carried over to a sequel. They exist for the benefit of the game where you make those decisions. Importing decisions in any capacity is a feature of a sequel, not the reason you have decisions in the prequel.

And it's a feature we will continue to support. I appreciate the fact there are those who think establishing a canon with each new game will make for a stronger story, but in our opinion so does allowing you the benefit of believing this is your world. Yes, that is largely an illusion and one that may break down for some folks depending on how stringent thier requirements are for divergence. The fact that it'll never be enough for some doesn't, however, mean that the benefit it has for everyone else should be ignored.

And it won't be. As I've said here and elsewhere, how we're doing imports is something we'll eventually address. The issue for us has always been how to do it better, not whether to do it at all. Not doing it at all would be something to consider for some other game series that isn't Dragon Age.

[David Gaider]

draken-heart wrote...
^straight from the mouth of Gaider. Now can we lock this thread and all others that pop up?

Why lock it down? So long as people are polite and on topic, they can continue to advocate whatever they like. This just isn't something we will consider. There's no need to be concerned we will be persuaded by posts about it if nobody comes to the thread to argue the point-- you can safely ignore the topic if you wish.

Modifié par David Gaider, 06 novembre 2012 - 08:59 .

[David Gaider]

Realmzmaster wrote...
but I, Fast Jimmy and others will continue to be the flies buzzing in his ear whispering otherwise.

You appear to underestimate our ability to just ignore threads.

Which I will get back to, I suppose.

[Allan Schumacher]

nedpepper wrote...

Hmph.  You know, the "remove the save import" threads, the two I've been in, have been civil and logical.  In fact, it's just people looking objectively at a function that they wanted to like and enjoy and seeing a major flaw in its implentation.

Hence why were aren't too concerned with the likes of Fast Jimmy and Realmzmaster buzzing around in threads like these, as opposed to locking the thread down.

[Allan Schumacher]

All that is a bunch of fluff that has zero impact on gameplay and merely provides interchangable cutscenes that have no serious impact on the story. The rest of the game plays the same no matter what one did on Rannoch or Tuchanka.

Just to be clear, are you then stating that the difference with Eve is effectively uninteresting and of no significant value?

[Allan Schumacher]

To put the discussion in the proper context, having Eve affects nothing in game, other than the speculation of what some characters think might happen.

So would you say that the inclusion of how Eve can play out does nothing for the game? And as such, its removal would have at worst not affected the overall quality of the game, while at best actually improved it?

[Allan Schumacher]

No, I don't think the game would have been better without the character. Or even the fact that the existence of her character in ME3 is predicated on Maleon's cure.

But because of the ambiguity of the endings, the entire notion of her existence is made weaker. Therefore, the import that predicated her existence, by default, becomes weaker. If the endings had, instead, made clear exact consequences and outcomes of our decisions, this would have mattered more, since the choice of whether or not she died would have had some type of tangible relevance.

Did Eve affect that nature of events on Tuchanka? No, she was merely a rather quiet passenger. Did her influence make the Reapers any weaker in Priority Earth? Not from any signs we were given. Did she have any deep insights into the Crucible's construction? No, she doesn't appear to have any science bend that would be of use.

So, aside from what we imagine to happen (which, as I said earlier, has as much credence as fan fic like the Indoctrination Theory), what are we shown as Eve doing? The answer is not much of anything. Instead, if the choice actually played into how things turned out or how the galaxy wound up once the final decision was made, then her character would have a value to the story, instead of just being fertilizer for head canon.

ME3 spoilers:

I ask because you seem to think it's all rather subpar, and that the idea that the game just ran with whatever would make for an inherently superior game experience.

I think you have a valid concern, but your example with Eve undermines your position. It very much plays an impact over how the situation on Tuchanka plays out, especially when combined with Wrex's status. Heck, you can straight up convince Mordin that curing the genophage is a ****** poor idea if the conditions are perfect, to which he agrees and moves on. The consequences? Sure, with some metagaming we can go "Ehhhhh, it doesn't really have much of an impact." I agree that impactful choices are still important, but as I've learned on this very board since I have started hanging out here, that's not the sole reason for choices existing. I have actually softened quite a bit on the idea that "a choice is not interesting if doesn't provide some level of observable reactivity to it."

On some level, simply allowing the choices to be made, despite not knowing the actual outcomes of it, places an emphasis on the choice itself rather than the results of said choice. You can dismiss this as me just "headcannoning" if you'd like, but I am reminded of Ravel's question to The Nameless One in Torment. Ultimately, there is no right answer to her question... she's only interesting in what your answer is.

Why I liked the ME3 ending, was that you got to know pretty much as much as Shepard got to know, and you had to make your choice at the end without knowing how things work out. In that sense, the emphasis shifted more to the idea of the ethical considerations of the choice itself, rather than any sort of validation from the game (Yay, the game agrees with me that my choice was bestest), or cognitive dissonance avoidance schemes (Pfft, stupid game... I don't think it'd play out like that at all).


The Tuchanka scene isn't even about the specifics of curing the genophage from my point of view. It's a look at the ethics of the genophage and how the player exercises Shepard's influence based on those ethical considerations. The best (and most traumatizing) sequence for that arc to play out is when Shepard and Mordin are at an impasse, and Shepard is holding his gun up threatening Mordin, and despite their past (which for most people is amicable), Mordin defies Shepard because he feels that strongly about atoning for what he has done. That whole scene is vapor if Wrex is dead and so is Eve. But it represents a distinctly different character arc while at the same time being entirely consistent with Mordin's character.


The risk with making choices impactful is that you make the consequence the important aspect. If curing the genophage results in a cutscene/slide of the Krogan going all militant and overrunning the galaxy, you're still going to get MANY (MANY!) very pissed off people. You also get the game telling the player "The best solution may not have been curing the genophage after all. You chose poorly." Nevermind the host of other accusations that people would then place on us (the content creators) for allowing such an act to take place. An advantage of not making it immediately obvious (especially given that, within the scope of ME3, the curing of the genophage is something that is going to have long term consequences, not so much short term ones) is that it can leave the player with the feeling of "I hope my choice was worth it in the end." Especially if the choice itself is presented in a way that it may or may not have good consequences.

This can work with something like Bhelen and Harrowmont, but even then there's some level of "What!?" For my I go "Cool!" For others, they go "Well that's not what I wanted. I'll have to make sure I pick Bhelen in future games then...." So it's still a tricky card to play, because the emphasis can shift on "what's the right solution?"

Of course, try to have equal costs/consequences, and you still end up getting "well what's the point?" as well as some chiming in that it sends a bad message that nothing good can happen or all sorts of other things.


TL;DR I think doing things your way presents a different set of challenges. Which is ultimately better is tough to say. Yes, I can agree that it is disappointing that such outcomes like darkside KOTOR (or pretty much most of the outright evil options in a lot of games) is no longer valid. But I think it's a balancing act, and in some cases simply allowing the choice is important for allowing the player to define their character (no matter how "pointless" the decision may be), while at the same time never having impactful choices can also lead to a sense of irrelevance and pointlessness to some.

I just don't feel that the Eve example is a great example of where you want to have "Choice and Consequence" (and gamers in many ways have made convincing arguments that they aren't too keen on consequence unless it's the consequence that they want, no matter how logically appropriate different consequences may be)

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 23 avril 2013 - 08:21 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

To be fair, I had responded to a number of other (admittedly better) instances of poor choice imports for both DA and ME and you pulled the Eve one out of a list of four other Tuchanka examples.

But your overall point is valid - people make the choice because they feel it is the choice they want. And having the devs come back and say "you chose wrong" (or making the player feel that way, at least) is very dangerous and tricky.

I personally loved the Harrowmont/Bhelen choice. Mostly because neither one was good. Harrowmont was a prejudiced reactionary and Bhelen was a power-hungry opportunist. This is a vast departure from, say, Wrex and Wreav, where one is painted as definitively good, while the other as definitively bad. I could honestly see the Harrowmont/Bhelen endings applying quite easily to the Wrex/Wreav situation, where Wreav was able to unite the clans and preventing them from reveling, while Wrex had to constantly try and fail to unite them under a banner of peace if the cure is applied.

I loved Harrowmont/Bhelen as well.  I'm curious if it's low-key enough.

Also, while at work I find myself skimming posts quickly, so apologies if I didn't really see your other examples.  (I actually wrote my wall of text up between doing other things, so I suspect it's just written poorly.

But not wanting to assign consequence because you are afraid of hurting the player's feelings is limiting, in my eyes. And, in terms of the imports, it further restricts what can and can't be followed up on and how... which, in turn, hampers writing to prevent the writers from painting themselves in a corner as someone said earlier.

At the same time, making the focus of the choice be the consequences because a player feels the need to actually see what happens is just the opposite side of the same coin.  In showing the consequence, you make the choice about the consequence.  In not showing the consequence, you make the choice about the motivations of the choice itself.

On some level I'm just devil's advocating here, as I like impactful choices a lot too.  Some of them are more obvious, like "If I side with this guy, it'd be more interesting if the plot diverged somewhat than if I chose his competitor."

I don't think we should not show choices simply to prevent ourselves from hurting people's feelings.  By the same token, I also don't think we should show choices simply to satisfy one's curiosity of "so what happens with that choice."  It depends on what we're looking to deliver with the choice.  I think sometimes it works one way, sometimes it works another way.

Saving someone thta will sitll end up dead could be seen as pointless.  Or it can just be a reflection of the type of character you want to play.  (i.e. Lee in TWD).