soo-sama wrote...
Since the argument between you guys at Bioware and this community started I kept asking myself what it is that bugs me so much of not being able to play as a non-human in DA2. And honestly, I had been eager to don the skin of an elf and dwarf (or even a kossith) in the next DragonAge again.
So thank you for that comment. I found my answer. It isn't necessarily bound by race. For me it is essentially the conflict, the differences that come with being one of the minorities and embracing an, more or less, alien culture.
To be the advocate for my social, cultural and historical backround. Or just to forsake it. To be pried by others. Or being the flagbearer of my people. It's like living in a foreign country with a different culture. Every individual wants to be special in some way. That's what appeals to me. At this point I recognise that, for the most part, I might substitute the aforementioned matter with a, if not the, race question - How so?
I think the advantage the races have is that as a fan who doesn't have much information, it's
easy to conceive of how the game would be different as an elf or a dwarf because those differences are established in DAO (and even DA2). With a more vague reference to backgrounds that aren't playable, people will naturally gravitate to Mass Effect since it's the most similar thing. Comparing picking those to full playable Origins is naturally going to be an unfavourable comparison.
I actually agree that making the backgrounds playable would make them more interesting (it's just easier to get that level of investment). It comes down to picking our battles for where we want to allocate our time and which content we think is essential for the game that we want to make to try to put out the best possible game we can.
It's on us to deliver on making the backgrounds important, and if someone is skeptical I think that that is fine (I encourage it). I don't ask and dig deeper to just go "See! You don't need races after all! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA. KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!" <.<
We understand that for some, simply being a dwarf is cool. They may not even care about any implications. They just want to be a dwarf because they see Dwarves as badass mofos who don't take no crap from no one! Some of them will be "Well this sucks... but eh I'll survive." Others will be "Well... you're gonna have to do something pretty darn special to hold my interest then...." Those people are the one most affected by this decision, since they just can't play as a dwarf.
But I do think that some of the disappointment is because people lose that easy to conceive differences that the races give, and if there's some way to make a better game based upon still improving player agency and allowing for roleplaying, then that's still stuff to try to achieve.
Granted, from a player history and "head canon" (I don't really like that term, but whatever), I do think it's still value added if someone can imagine that their Dalish Elf motivation is due to whatever Elf specific reasoning that makes the most sense for them. In that regard I empathize with those that won't be able to do something like that if that's what they were hoping for.
At the same time, however, I don't really feel that the racial selection is required for creating better roleplaying experience. I have played enough RPGs that didn't have any difference in chargen aside from "What class do you want to be?" that I still felt provided great roleplaying experiences. I think stating "well those games didn't have multiple races" is a red herring (a game like KOTOR does have multiple races but still works well as a human only PC) in that people are associating the expected differences in gameplay/experience that exists with what
should be present with different races.
It's one thing to have a preference for those differences because you're a big fan of the elves/dwarves, but too many games with human only characters have shown that roleplaying opportunities do not necessitate multiple races.
Retour en haut
