edit: lots of edits, playing thread catch-up again
Fast Jimmy wrote...
Gaider has come out and said (recently) that if the Ultimate Sacrifice was done and no Ritual occurred, there will be no OGB.
1. Now... how they plan on having a deity walking the face of the earth, being raised by Morrigan, a character who is certainly going to be involved in the spot light of the main plot here at some point, and NOT make that a big deal is going to be interesting. Honestly, I feel like even the best writers in the world could do any justice to the choice at all without resulting in two very different playthroughs, which Bioware has never committed to before in the past.
2. Its a recipe for creating a stream of constantly, ever-growing sum of custom content.
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its a spiraling task. Its a rabbit hole with no end to it. Its going to either A) result in them giving up on import choices or 
hopping so far into the future that no choice matters, period and/or have an event happens that wipes the slate clean of any prior events... which is asinine.
3. The Fallout series is great with this. It lets you make vastly diffferent decisions, killing people as you see fit, wiping out entire towns if it so fits your playthrough... and then, in the sequel, the events are set. That town one character wiped out? Turns out it actually grew to be one of the largest governing bodies in the entire Western Hemisphere. If Fallout tried to do game imports, it would have completely crippled that plot line, or it would have done a cop out where things still happened the same way regardless.
4. It is a lofty goal to attempt. But it is 100%, undoubtedly, completely unsustainable. They managed to do a sequel where they hid away from any real influence from the first game (much like ME2 did). But the third game, with events happening that are easily influenced by, say, who's the king of Ferelden or if there is a Circle left in the eastern part of Thedas (since both Kirkwall's and Ferelden's could have been annulled or saved, depending on choices in DA:O and DA2) or if the dwarves, who supply lyrium to both mages and Templars, are ruled by an isolationist king or a king that encourages trade with topsiders... all of these things could EASILY have implications to the story.
5. But they won't. Not in a meaningful way. Because its impossible to do that. Literally - IMPOSSIBLE.
1. The conflict is between Morrigan and Flemeth. If Morrigan has the OGB with her, she stands a better chance of stopping Flemeth ultimately, but that's not the only variable. What about the Warden? What about Merrill and Hawke potentially? etc. They've slow boiled this mostly in the background, and until it's cooked, there's no reason they can't continue that. When it is, I imagine we'll get two or four very different versions of the resolution, but there's nothing that says it has to take up hours and hours and hours of gametime or involve whole armies or whatever else. It's very doable, and I hope and believe they can do it well. I'm looking forward to it, and to seeing it play out in different ways.
2. Not every variable plays into every game. You could have variables from DA:O that don't come in until DA5 or DA6. And as they come, there's no reason you can't resolve them piecemeal. Just because the status quo will need to roughly be the same for plot point 27 two games down the road doesn't mean we won't see entirely different, and not overly resource intensive, ways of seeing that plot take shape along the way. You can basically resolve plots as they come across the series, so there's always a manageable number of variables at play at any one time.
And there's no reason you couldn't have Orzammar play a major part again, as a for instance. Just because you're in the city doesn't mean you spend tons of time with its king (or the warden and his potential kid). If you're going to be there anyway, most of your assets will be used for both versions of the events in that area. What's left would be the typical either/or cameo cast, maybe an extra scene for the warden. The environment would exist either way, all of the other main characters, all the art assets aside from the three or four characters (one of which would be player edited and another potentially procedurally generated), the basic animation sets, etc. It's a relatively minor extra expense to feed dwarf wardens or one of the two potential kings in there. You're talking about a few cutscene moments worth of animation, two or three models, the DA2 family generator system tweaked a little, and some short VA work. The court of Denerim is the same way, any mage circle or Dalish clan or Redcliff or Kirkwall, whatever pre-existing locations we might visit. Let's not make it sound so impossible.
With the timescale, you can even retire characters, so that dead/alive resolves itself. Some characters that survive one game might not survive the next or the one after, etc. We also don't need cameos except where they make sense and add to the overall plot, but I do like them and they do add to my game and they are important. I do want to see both my PCs and companion characters pop up where they should, but just because one version of the warden or Hawke would show up at a particular place doesn't mean all versions would. Get the first PC extended main plot tied cameos into this game and then only include whatever versions would naturally appear in future, or kill them if it makes sense, but not off screen. I've already posted at length in the related thread about how that could be done very well. I would also like to see more codex entries for the various companions over the course of the series if we don't see them, just so we have a running plot going on in the background that follows on our companion related choices and appearances. If it wouldn't normally show up on camera, there's no reason to ham-fist it in there.
3. There's a reason I only play Fallout games once through, and don't necessarily pre-order.. The solution for DA is simply not to give apocalyptic style choices that you don't intend to fully respect. BioWare games are character first, heavily relationship oriented, writerly things. They don't lend well to kill 'em all gameplay, which is why I'm not thrilled about getting to completely wipe out both Dalish tribes we've seen much of so far, for instance. They need to avoid things like that and companion killing, anything they don't fully expect to respect in future. Then you don't have to worry about blatant ret-cons anymore, or getting boxed in by unforseen choice problems.
4. I agree that they should *all* factor into the story. We might visit some of those places or characters might come to us or whatever, but I hope we see it in some way.
5. It's really not.
I can see how to do it, so I'm sure they can. What we'll actually see I imagine will have more to do with what fits the story best than any limitations around imports.
David Gaider wrote...
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?
......
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.
Yes it is.
And great to hear!
Modifié par cindercatz, 07 octobre 2012 - 09:12 .
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I want to see them reflected in the game, and in order for that to happen, there has to be some form of import.
