I'm personally of the opinion that it really doesn't matter in either case but that's also because I have a fairly vivid and extensive imagination that I can rework most plot points to still remain cohesively whole while altering bits that I find mostly pointless. Taking DA2 for example, I played through it vanilla a couple times taking different companions and classes, and getting a feel for things. My first play through I'd have to say I disliked the game immensely as a lot of it felt like an outright emotional blackmail trading on the DA name without actually being much like DA. However, once I had played through enough times that I had the basic storyline and characters straight in my head, I delved into the wonderful world of modding.
Mage Hawke running around in act 3 with Bethany? Not a problem because the Bethany/Carver situation only exists to try to force you into an emotional position regarding the mage/templar divide and frankly I didn't need them to be on opposite sides; my Hawke was as emotionally invested in Bethany despite them both being mages because she understood everything she was going through and dammit, as her big sister she wasn't going to let anybody crap on her life, laws and gods be damned. Admittedly that dynamic would have probably been different with Carver and a non-mage Hawke but I personally chalk that up more to Carver being an ass then anything else (though if I cared to I could easily see how my Hawke would, as a reaction, take the opposite stance of Carver just to rub it into his face, or far more likely that Carver's position was opposite of Hawke's simply because he was an ass). Mage Hawke running around using occasional two-hander abilities? Hey, there are pointy blade parts on a lot of staves for a reason if you ask me, and the Destiny trailer blatantly has him using his as a melee weapon so why not? Besides, it makes sense for an apostate to know some degree of self-defense with a stick instead of being entirely reliant on magic like a Circle mage might be.
Ultimately the stance I've developed from all of that is that I think its dependent upon the player. The problem though is that unlike with traditional sequel games which were aimed primarily at fans of the prequels, current sequels attempt to divide the line aiming at both fans and new players while also pretending that the player has a major influence on the fate of worlds (which really isn't so), but more often then not are built more with new players in mind then fans. This is especially the case with Bioware games of the current "generation" as the lore and characters, for the most part, are cameo affairs with one or two liners than things which carry over and get developed; the world continuity feeling exists only as a minor bonus then as an actual thing (which makes it certainly easier to make the game, but at the same time it also lessons the feeling of continuity that fans crave. Sure, Alistair showed up in DA2 as the king, but according to Witch Hunt and DA2's internal timeline my Warden already disappeared into the Eluvian with Morrigan, so why are Alistair and Teagan talking about meeting up with him in Denerim four years after the fact? 1 step forward 1 step backwards. Alistair showed up, sure, but he's not my Alistair). Thus we get to my point, at last.
I think the structuring of the DA series by giving us DA:O first and then the far more structured and set DA2 was a good idea in hindsight, but which should have been better telegraphed and the decision tree laid out for us. Ultimately the point of DA:O, from a series basis, is to give the player the ability to fill in the blanks for themselves and to imagine how it all connects without having all the pieces; to play assistant storyteller and make up for themselves a story that satisfies. DA2 though is a straight forward narrated story (as per it's narrative device of book ending it with Varric and Cassandra) and while it contains a few references to DA1, it is, for the most part, self contained and really only shares geography with the first game. Which is fine and frankly because I can make things up and fill in the blanks myself, and outright say at DA2's codex "no, that's wrong, this is how it is" without raging out at it, it's a better thing.
Fan-canon/head-canon I believe is the term. Frankly, we as the players need more of that on an individual level because it allows us to take the framework which Bioware gives us (and frankly that's what it should be, a framework) and then make it personalized to ourselves. If nothing else the technology isn't in place to create the personalization that Bioware pretends their games possess (just look at how much choice really didn't matter that much in Mass Effect; the outcomes that "mattered" were for the most part hardwired in from the get go and the differences were predominately cosmetic or cameo in nature and in most cases your past actions really didn't have that much of an input on your current options) so it's up to us to personalize on a personal level. And if you don't care to do that and just want to enjoy an interactive movie with game elements, hey, that's there too, and more power to you.
Video games get a lot of flack for being escapist due to their interactive nature and the indulging narratives. No matter how hard developers may try to create an identity for the character you control, it'll always be a fiction that's one level removed from self-realization because no matter what happens when people talk about, say, when Hawke kills the Arishok, the player isn't going to tell their friend "and then Hawk used Maker's Fist to smash his silly horned head in" they're going to say "and then I used Maker's Fist and totally kicked his ass." We own the actions of the character, even if it's scripted, because we entered in the inputs and made that choice, and that's the choice that matters, not the one the narrative tells us does.
It's only one step from owning a character to owning a story. Hawke is Bioware's creation, just like the Warden, and just like the DA3 character will be but that doesn't mean he isn't also mine and it doesn't mean that my highly modded up variant story isn't equally valid, especially not when it does what the game is supposed to do; make me enjoy it. If I have the imagination to dismiss canon when it contradicts my personal enjoyment then customization is no longer an issue, all that matters is that the framework for something that makes me dream is there. That's what I want. Give me the frame, give me the potentials, and I'll do the rest for you, Bioware. Ultimately the distinction is moot between story and character, it's about the experience and frankly, only I should be dictated the relevance of an experience to myself.
At the same time, I can also appreciate the other side of the coin and ultimately I think it's a give and take. If Bioware wants to hold up the image that it cares what we think (with regards to that applying to the game choices that is) and that they're one of the premier developers in the industry which are making player choice a critical aspect of their games then they have to take into account our choices and actually make them actually matter like they say they will. At the same time we as the players need to also be able to take it when Bioware says "okay, you made that choice but we want to go into this direction so we're invalidating it" and suck it up, or simply just retcon the entire thing in our heads, though frankly it's ridiculously easy in most cases to make horrible inconsistencies line up even if they are entirely contrary; remember, this is a universe where one of the major subcharacters can apparently defy causality at near-will with seemingly little consequence. Also, magic.
Frankly, I think they'll have less of an issue with writing themselves into a corner with the DA franchise as compared to the Mass Effect universe primarily because the companions don't, for the most part, carry over because, and honestly I don't see why Bioware hasn't realized this because it's been their winning formula since Baldur's Gate, the average player of a Bioware game likely gets more attached to the characters than they do the story (with the story just being the excuse for the relationships built between characters). Dragging characters from one game to the next really only works for players when you keep what they like and not radically change things just to force a point (I'm looking at Anders in specific here). So really, carry over needs to be viewed by Bioware less as an easy tool for emotional blackmail and we need to separate our personal Thedas from the Bioware's development Thedas, which already ignores our actions and choices anyways.
TLDR: It works either way but both parties (Bioware and us) need to own up to our "responsibilities" no matter which choice is made.
Modifié par WhiteJoker, 08 novembre 2012 - 07:45 .
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Gaider gets it, what he said really sums it up. You know (just personally speaking here, my own flawed opinion), the "illusion" which he speaks of is a huge thing for me. It does make me feel like its my own world when I play 
. I dont care if all the stories connect, I dont care if all I get in each game is a few winks, like when Bohdan talks about the Warden when you first meet him DA2. Its not a lot of information as much as it is a wink to the player. It lets me know (the illusion again) that what I did matters, that people (in game) are talking about it. 
Here I am playing a new character and the Legend of my previous one is being told all over Thedas 
I LOVE this about DA.
