175 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvianus]

Dabrikishaw wrote...

Masha Potato wrote...

Mary Kirby wrote...

silentassassin264 wrote...

So why was there never a quest to give Hawke a "personal reason" to fear the misuse of power by the templars?

Because they already had one. Hawke's father was an apostate, their family lived in hiding from the Templars all Hawke's life. Either Hawke was an apostate, or had an apostate sister. The Templars were a constant, looming personal threat.

I get that as a background reason, but it was just that - background. It's only my opinion of course, but the in-game situations which you take part in (i. e. killing bonkers mages) bear a lot bigger emotional weight than something that any assumed situation can.

As far as i can remember we had only one direct interaction with the templars regarding family being taken to the Circle - the time Cullen takes Bethany away. Again, i do understand that family background should be taken into consideration when playing, but it's not the same as dealing with the actual situation.

These are all great points. Not a single thing in the game was done that I felt was supposed to make me fear mages.

Not everyone shares the same opinion. Some things helped me to think that the mages were more dangerous than I thought in DAII. 

Modifié par Sylvianus, 11 novembre 2012 - 04:32 .

[BlueMagitek]

Zaeed is boss.

Anyway, as for meta-gaming, in a role playing game, your character is usually meant to be your entry way into the world. But at the same time, they've already been shaped by their own experience. Look at DA:O, each Origin has a specific background already for the character until they're in your hands. From a Dalish Hunter to a Circle Mage to a Dwarf Casteless. So, while it is possible to be the white, gallant knight in every playthrough, usually some options don't make sense, others make more sense. Look at the the Dwarf King option, most people, on their first playthrough, will probably choose Harrowmont. He seems like an honorable guy and Bhelen is quite slimy. But, a Dwarf Casteless will have plenty reason to choose Bhelen over Harrowmont. However, upon looking at the epilogue slides, most players may choose Bhelen over Harrowmont because of them. Not because it makes sense for the character, but because they want a better ending.

Wait, I'm sorry, back on topic. Metagaming, using knowledge that the protagonist doesn't to influence your choices. Is usually seen as bad because it is more or less cheating. You also tend to take actions that don't make sense for your character when you metagame.

[Dabrikishaw]

Whoops, meant to quote silentassassin264.

[mickey111]

BlueMagitek wrote...

Zaeed is boss.

Anyway, as for meta-gaming, in a role playing game, your character is usually meant to be your entry way into the world. But at the same time, they've already been shaped by their own experience. Look at DA:O, each Origin has a specific background already for the character until they're in your hands. From a Dalish Hunter to a Circle Mage to a Dwarf Casteless. So, while it is possible to be the white, gallant knight in every playthrough, usually some options don't make sense, others make more sense. Look at the the Dwarf King option, most people, on their first playthrough, will probably choose Harrowmont. He seems like an honorable guy and Bhelen is quite slimy. But, a Dwarf Casteless will have plenty reason to choose Bhelen over Harrowmont. However, upon looking at the epilogue slides, most players may choose Bhelen over Harrowmont because of them. Not because it makes sense for the character, but because they want a better ending.

Wait, I'm sorry, back on topic. Metagaming, using knowledge that the protagonist doesn't to influence your choices. Is usually seen as bad because it is more or less cheating. You also tend to take actions that don't make sense for your character when you metagame.

I think you're too worried about "sense". I'd usually prefer whatever choices make for greater dramtic effect and not worry so much about whether it makes sense. I like it when terrible things start happening, which means I do things against my better judgment. If that type of story telling is good enough for Nolan (thinking of the Dark Knight movie) then it's good enough for me

Modifié par mickey111, 11 novembre 2012 - 04:48 .

[Mike_Neel]

The way I see it once you put down your money it's your game to do with as you see fit.

if you want to metagame go for it. You shouldn't be punished or judged for it any more than a person that wants to spend a lot of time developing an inner story for your characters background and decisions and then role play the game accordingly.

[draken-heart]

Here is what Metagaming is for Role-playing games:

In role-playing games, a player is metagaming when they use knowledge that is not available to their character in order to change the way they play their character (usually to give them an advantage within the game), such as knowledge of the mathematical nature of character statistics, or the statistics of a creature that the player is familiar with but the character has never encountered. In general, it refers to any gaps between player knowledge and character knowledge which the player acts upon.

This is negative because it is the player using their knowledge from past runs through a game or from information gathered from outside the game being played to create the best run. We are guilty of it from time to time.

[Leonia]

Filament wrote...

Mary Kirby wrote...

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...


Thats what we were supposed to get out of that scene? I totally did not get that vibe at all.

No. Nothing in the scene is supposed to convey, "BE AFRAID OF BAD MAGES!" But the purpose of the plot in the overall story is to have the player experience a personal loss due to the abuse of power by a mage. Not everyone is going to play that plot and say, "Maleficarum are jerks!" And that's fine. But the game in general is heavily weighted toward "Templars are jerks!" and we wanted at least one chance for a reasonable player to feel they had been personally wronged by mages.

I don't think that's the position of a reasonable player at all tbh. You don't take the actions of one mage and then expect the player to feel wronged by "mages" as a general entity. Maybe if DA2 had developed his connection with Orsino and possibly others within the circle, more than just an "aha!" moment at the end, after you've already made your big decision, such a thing would have been more worth considering.

I know we were supposed to care about the abuse of power by mages and templars but the only real take away that I got was "abusing power is bad" whether it be magic or something else and I kind of knew that already before playing DA2.

[rapscallioness]

Mary Kirby wrote...

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...


Thats what we were supposed to get out of that scene? I totally did not get that vibe at all.

No. Nothing in the scene is supposed to convey, "BE AFRAID OF BAD MAGES!" But the purpose of the plot in the overall story is to have the player experience a personal loss due to the abuse of power by a mage. Not everyone is going to play that plot and say, "Maleficarum are jerks!" And that's fine. But the game in general is heavily weighted toward "Templars are jerks!" and we wanted at least one chance for a reasonable player to feel they had been personally wronged by mages.

Well, I did get that feeling. Very much so. It even affected the rest of my decisions. That moment.

Zombie Leandra? oh my god....

As far as meta-gaming, I didn't know anyone was hating on it. Personally, I will not meta on the first, or second playthru.

If the game is fun and I'm willing to replay it a 3rd time, then meta-gaming becomes like a lil mini game to me. Trying to figure out how to balance everything to get the out come I want. Which can be a bit tricky w/those rivalry/approval points.

[deuce985]

Mary Kirby wrote...

silentassassin264 wrote...

So why was there never a quest to give Hawke a "personal reason" to fear the misuse of power by the templars?

Because they already had one. Hawke's father was an apostate, their family lived in hiding from the Templars all Hawke's life. Either Hawke was an apostate, or had an apostate sister. The Templars were a constant, looming personal threat.

Interesting. I never really looked at it from that perspective. Thank you for giving me new thought to the entire ordeal.

[Face of Evil]

I savescum the s**t out of my games. And if the game requires me to make a decision, I'll frequently play through it multiple times before I make the "best" decision.

For instance, I played through the stealth section of Mark of the Assassin and went "huh, not bad." But I didn't need the trinkets that came with it and I was playing a Warrior Hawke anyway, so I went back and went through the whole section murdering Orlesian guards.

I'm really more about building a fulfilling narrative than I am about RPing a character. 

Modifié par Face of Evil, 11 novembre 2012 - 05:32 .

[Firky]

That's really interesting about how the Mum quest might have played out. I would have totally kept her around as animated dead. (Mostly from a curiosity as to how your former mother, now zombie, would have panned out as a character/dialogue etc.)

Oddly, I didn't see that as a reason to -bad feeling- mages in DA2, though. I just construed it as one person being crazy.

[Maria Caliban]

JasonPogo wrote...

I'm just wondering why devs and writers seem so hell bent on using this term as a negative.

They've hung out with the the RPG crowd on the forums for so long, we've infected them a bit.

Welsh Inferno wrote...

You shouldn't make decisions on information the protagonist doesn't have.

RPG combat often demands you do just that. Significant encounters are built with the assumption that you'll need to die, reload, and replay using what you learned.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 11 novembre 2012 - 06:02 .

[Adanu]

Mary Kirby wrote...

we wanted at least one chance for a reasonable player to feel they had been personally wronged by mages.

If this is what the writers intended, that was not conveyed. What I got out of that one is that the guards are incompetent as **** and that Templars are not only power abusing ****s but ones who dismiss valid concerns.

This quest was the work of one psychopath who happened to be a mage, there is no culture behind him that supports his ideals. Templars, on the other hand, have a whole system and order in place to be ****s towards mages.

Might want to add that for future feedback.

[Maria Caliban]

Mary Kirby wrote...

This is actually a misconception. There was never, at any time in development, an ending to the quest All That Remains that allowed Leandra to survive. 

We considered adding an alternate ending because of our QA feedback. But we decided against it because the purpose the quest serves in the story is to give Hawke (regardless of their own class) a personal reason to fear the misuse of magic.

And actually, we never seriously considered any ending where Leandra survived. The ending we might have chosen to add would have been a blood magic sacrifice to keep Leandra around as an undead.

That's rather interesting.

[Face of Evil]

Filament wrote...

I don't think that's the position of a reasonable player at all tbh. You don't take the actions of one mage and then expect the player to feel wronged by "mages" as a general entity.

You can when you recognize that Quentin could ONLY have done what he did because he was a mage. He didn't just kill Leandra, he chopped her up and used her head to complete his undead bride. He did the same to several other women. Any lone madman might have killed Leandra, but he couldn't have violated her body in such a way. (Sure, lots of serial killers keep trophies from their victims, but they can't keep their victims around as undead sex slaves.) And a mundane lunatic certainly wouldn't have a small army of demons and walking corpses to protect him and assassinate any investigator who was gettitng too close.

If the system had worked as intended, then Leandra and Quentin's other victims would never have died, because Quentin would have been locked up in the Circle or killed for corruption. That's a pretty good reason to fear the power of mages.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 11 novembre 2012 - 06:36 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Maria Caliban wrote...

JasonPogo wrote...

I'm just wondering why devs and writers seem so hell bent on using this term as a negative.

They've hung out with the the RPG crowd on the forums for so long, we've infected them a bit.

Welsh Inferno wrote...

You shouldn't make decisions on information the protagonist doesn't have.

RPG combat often demands you do just that. Significant encounters are built with the assumption that you'll need to die, reload, and replay using what you learned.

I don't think this continues to be true.  The information necessary to succeed in combat encounters is available the first time you play them.  As you grow more familiar with the game, you'll get better at identifying and applying this information, and you an stop dying.

Only if there's a gimmick in the encounter do you need to get killed by it to know what it is, and that's always been poor design (though I'll agree it was once quite common).

As it happens, I do think DA2 did what you describe more than DAO did.  The Rock Wraith in DA2 was extremely difficult if you didn't happen to luck into the awareness of how that AoE attack worked.  DAO's only real failure on this front was a lack of documentation of the combat mechanics, so players sometimes didn't know how important some types of tactical options were (like the susceptibility of animals to Mind spells like Sleep).

[Dhiro]

As a player, I share the overall stance of "He was just one psycho!". That said, I think the quest did a good job putting the fear of the misuse of magic in my Hawkes. This particular quest is usually the one where their opinions about magic change in a very meaningful way.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The problem with All That Remains wasn't that there was no happy ending. It was that it was mandatory. At no point is Hawke given a compelling reason to care about the murders at all (Prime Suspect - a prerequisite quest) aside from a general appeal to heroism, and yet he cannot continue without investigating.

This is a problem throughout DA2 - the whole Blackpowder questline is the same.

[Firky]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The Rock Wraith in DA2 was extremely difficult if you didn't happen to luck into the awareness of how that AoE attack worked. 

I agree with what you're saying, generally, but I was surprised to find myself having the opposite experience of the Rock Wraith. They way it moved gave me cues. Like, it starts whirling around and (to me) that signalled to run/hide because it looked like it was doing a pull maneuver. And, if it goes into a ball, it's totally trying to bowl you over.

I really enjoyed this one because I could anticipate it. I was initially having trouble with dragons in DA2 because I wasn't sure of resistances etc, and they seemed to give less visual warning of incoming attacks.

[Foolsfolly]

Firky wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The Rock Wraith in DA2 was extremely difficult if you didn't happen to luck into the awareness of how that AoE attack worked. 

I agree with what you're saying, generally, but I was surprised to find myself having the opposite experience of the Rock Wraith. They way it moved gave me cues. Like, it starts whirling around and (to me) that signalled to run/hide because it looked like it was doing a pull maneuver. And, if it goes into a ball, it's totally trying to bowl you over.

I really enjoyed this one because I could anticipate it. I was initially having trouble with dragons in DA2 because I wasn't sure of resistances etc, and they seemed to give less visual warning of incoming attacks.

Exactly.

As a early 90s console gamer that grew up on the Genesis and NES you just see these telegraphed motions and instantly know what's going down. I saw the Rock Wraith curl up into a ball and I ran for the pillars the first time I fought it.

Not saying that means I'm an uber-gamer and anyone who couldn't figure it out isn't or anything. And I know there has to be a percentage of people who feel that fight and the Arishok fight are too much "You've got your platformer in my RPG!" for their tastes. But I liked it.

[Gilsa]

I didn't get the vibe that metagaming was frowned upon. I think it does remove the honesty of why certain choices were made when people discuss the game. My favorite stories to read are the ones that share the experiences of their first playthrough and how they interpreted a certain scene even though they ended up being completely wrong. It makes for good stories.

For instance, I was completely wrong about Loghain in my first game. I thought if I spared him, I'd gain Loghain and the entire freaking army he had at Ostagar in addition to the armies from the three treaties. I also thought that Loghain's crimes could be dealt with later on in the game and that there'd also be a follow-up conversation with Alistair after Landsmeet. I did not realize I was literally just trading one man for another. Nasty shock.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Firky wrote...

I agree with what you're saying, generally, but I was surprised to find myself having the opposite experience of the Rock Wraith. They way it moved gave me cues. Like, it starts whirling around and (to me) that signalled to run/hide because it looked like it was doing a pull maneuver. And, if it goes into a ball, it's totally trying to bowl you over.

I really enjoyed this one because I could anticipate it.

And it required meta-gaming on your party.

I don't have any objection to meta-gaming when players do it.  They're free to play the game however they like.  But the game should not require or force metagaming.  You used your genre-savvy to navigate that encounter, and in-character that's not an available option.

[Gold Dragon]

My only real Meta-Gaming came when I was playing DA 2, and got what I thought was a Highly suspicious letter.  I went online to check it, and found nothing about it (I might have missed something, and think it likely, too).  So I decided to follow up on the letter, and see if it was a scam or trap (proving it a fake) or if it was genuine.  Sure enough, at the place named he was there, waiting.

Who was this letter from that I almost didn't believe?  King Alistair.  (Side note:  Alistair always takes the crown in Origins, and when the Warden is Human Female noble, she becomes queen).