104 réponses à ce sujet

[LinksOcarina]

TJPags wrote...

Indeed, and my point exactly.  Framed narrative works fine in a movie or a book.  In a video game, for me, didn't work at ALL.

So why do you play BioWare games? They always have been a framed narrative and a linear adventure. In fact, as others have pointed out above, BioWare does not really do anything out of the norm of their typical M.O, with the exception of save-importing major events/decisions to carry over to the next game. 

So honestly, I don't get your complaint since your being hypocritical to the design of the games you seem to play. 

[LinksOcarina]

Herr Uhl wrote...

Helena Tylena wrote...

Name any BioWare game that uses save-imports that had massively different endings.

Name me any game that uses save imports that have massively different endings (and actually take them into account). I'll wait.

In the meantime, I hope they can do more to make it seem like things change depending on what you do in game. This wasn't conveyed very well in DA2, as the three acts don't really influence eachother past the odd letter here and there.

None. But were not there yet.

that said, why should game one influence game two? What if it has something to do with game three or four? Is that ok? 

[Reaverwind]

xsdob wrote...

I just don't want the mages and templars in this conflict to be extremist, that's it.

I quite agree. I really don't want another farcical "choice" between looney #1 and looney #2.

Taint Master wrote...

Statulos wrote...

In terms of plot the relevance of Hawke´s involvement is none. Even if you don´t help Anders, the chantry blows up and the whole showdown in the Gallows happens the same way. Cassandra is trying to find the little details of the whole affair to discover that ultimately, Hawke had nothing to do with it.

Making a decission or not making it is simply irrelevant for the larger picture.

In regards to the ultimate outcome, yes.  But in regards to Hawke's involvement in the larger conflict, no.  If Hawke was completely neutral, with everything simply happening around him, his story wouldn't be worth telling.

No different from what we actually got, and surprise, his story wasn't worth telling. That is at the heart of many complaints about DA2.

Modifié par Reaverwind, 24 novembre 2012 - 09:46 .

[TJPags]

LinksOcarina wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Indeed, and my point exactly.  Framed narrative works fine in a movie or a book.  In a video game, for me, didn't work at ALL.

So why do you play BioWare games? They always have been a framed narrative and a linear adventure. In fact, as others have pointed out above, BioWare does not really do anything out of the norm of their typical M.O, with the exception of save-importing major events/decisions to carry over to the next game. 

So honestly, I don't get your complaint since your being hypocritical to the design of the games you seem to play. 

Well, I don't necessarily "play Bioware games".  I play some games that happen to be made by Bioware, DA:O, DA:A, and DA2 most recently.  Believe that I played BG and/or BG2 ages ago - don't really recall, although I do remember Minsc and his cosmic mouse.

That said - I would not consider DA:O or DA:A a framed narrative.  Linear adventure, yes, in that you work towards an unwavering ending scenario (battle archdemon in DA:O, defend against awakended darkspawn in DA:A).

However, choices you make in those games impact the games themselves.  Dark Ritual or not?  Keep or lose Alistair?  Live or die?  Defend the Keep or Amaranthine.  There are more.  And some only impact the path - elves or wolves survice, what companions do you have, etc.

Nothing in DA2, to me, seemed to change the path of the game in any meaningful way.  As I pointed out, no matter what you do with Anders, he blows up the Chantry.  Help him or not, no change.  Side with mages or side with Templars, you still end up fighting both Orsino and Meredith.  You are railroaded into confronting the Arishok - heck, I wanted to help him rule the City.

If that's somehow hypocritical, so be it.

[LinksOcarina]

TJPags wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Indeed, and my point exactly.  Framed narrative works fine in a movie or a book.  In a video game, for me, didn't work at ALL.

So why do you play BioWare games? They always have been a framed narrative and a linear adventure. In fact, as others have pointed out above, BioWare does not really do anything out of the norm of their typical M.O, with the exception of save-importing major events/decisions to carry over to the next game. 

So honestly, I don't get your complaint since your being hypocritical to the design of the games you seem to play. 

Well, I don't necessarily "play Bioware games".  I play some games that happen to be made by Bioware, DA:O, DA:A, and DA2 most recently.  Believe that I played BG and/or BG2 ages ago - don't really recall, although I do remember Minsc and his cosmic mouse.

That said - I would not consider DA:O or DA:A a framed narrative.  Linear adventure, yes, in that you work towards an unwavering ending scenario (battle archdemon in DA:O, defend against awakended darkspawn in DA:A).

However, choices you make in those games impact the games themselves.  Dark Ritual or not?  Keep or lose Alistair?  Live or die?  Defend the Keep or Amaranthine.  There are more.  And some only impact the path - elves or wolves survice, what companions do you have, etc.

Nothing in DA2, to me, seemed to change the path of the game in any meaningful way.  As I pointed out, no matter what you do with Anders, he blows up the Chantry.  Help him or not, no change.  Side with mages or side with Templars, you still end up fighting both Orsino and Meredith.  You are railroaded into confronting the Arishok - heck, I wanted to help him rule the City.

If that's somehow hypocritical, so be it.

Well, with your explaination its not really hypocritical at all.

That said, circumstances of the impact of quests is a sticky topic here, because I never felt such aspects cited were truely important regarding the choices.

For example, Anders blowing up the chantry we can't control, but why is this the focus of all the criticism? Isen't the more intesting choices regarding that situation as to what side we agree with, and how we deal with Anders? In that vein how can it not be impactful? Or the Arishok, regardless of helping him rule the city being a choice, you were still marked for death by him which doesn't change a thing either, other than a conversion to the Qun. Settling things peacefully harkens back to how you deal with Isabela and so forth, but with the Arishok alive, how does this change the fabric of the world down the road if he is alive or not, if the Tome is recovered or not? 

See I understand the fustration of aspects being picked for you, but that is present in many BioWare games as a design aspect so the narrative can be told. Does it make sense for the Warden to not fight the Archdemon if you built a coward of a character in your mind, or you have to follow Arl Eamon's suggestion for a Landsmeet to deal with Loghain? Or what about Baldurs Gate, where no matter what you still fight Savorek and learn he is your brother? You can't join him because hes an evil bastard, even if you're an equally evil bastard.

That to me is just telling the story that the developers wanted to tell. We can choose events and outcomes within that change it, but some things need to be forced to make them make sense. At least, that is how I see BioWare's design philosophy.

[wsowen02]

As long as Sandal does not appear in the last 5 minutes of the game and give me the options of killing the mages, controlling the mages or making everyone mages, I will probably be totally fine with whatever ending they come up with.

Modifié par wsowen02, 25 novembre 2012 - 11:52 .

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

Don't worry. Gaider said in one of the interviews that he's going to have Flemeth do that instead.

[Fast Jimmy]

I predict there will be no 'big' choice at the end of DA3. Your choices through out the game will affect the endings, but there will be no button to push, no decision to make, no moral choice to make a statement on.

First off, Mages will be free after DA3. That's a given fact - the devs wanted a good reason for Mages to be out of the Tower on a future basis, so that's what we're going to get.

Secondly, the ME3 endings have shown how unnecessarily polarizing these kinds of 'make a big choice at the end' scenarios can be. Camps split between RGB still to this day with deep infighting is not good for the fanbase, period.

Third, the same problem the ME team is having now - the Save Import. They can't even BEGIN to know where to start with ME4, because they had totally different setupsnfor each ending. The same would be said of destroying the Chantry/setting up a mageocracy vs. keeping things as the status quo - it's impossible to create a next game on that.

The game will likely be Mage vs. Templar, whoever your character sides with will start winning, the losing side will do something stupid and release a Big Bad, both sides work together to save the day, Unknown Plot Twist, both sides agree they have more in common than they thought, Templars help patrol Mages until they pass their harrowing, then Mages are free to wander the world (but still remain at the Tower or take the Rite of Tranquility if they choose).

Bam. Nice. Neat. Satisfying.

[In Exile]

Herr Uhl wrote...
Edit: In DAO, the second act at least interacts with the final battle re:armies and the Origin has an influence on one of the questlines in the second act. There is more of a callback.

What is the second act? And that's not branching content: the quest has some unique content based on your origin (and it otherwise plays out almost the same) but everything is almost identical. So I'm just a bit confused.

Reaverwind wrote...
No different from what we actually got, and surprise, his story wasn't worth telling. That is at the heart of many complaints about DA2.

Personally, I think think it wasn't worth playing through; but I thought it was a really clever story to tell, and an interesting deconstruction of the empowering fantasy hero.

TJPags wrote...
However, choices you make in those games
impact the games themselves.  Dark Ritual or not?  Keep or lose
Alistair?  Live or die?  Defend the Keep or Amaranthine.  There are
more.  And some only impact the path - elves or wolves survice, what
companions do you have, etc.

All of those choices are irrelevant. Do you see the OGB in the game? What does it do? Give you a slightly different epilogue scene, that has as much unique content as the cutscenes you get between siding with Meredith vs. Orisino. Live or die is exactly the same content as OGB. Dalish? Just some changes at the Dalish camp.

That's totally on par with Feynriel in DA2 or Ser Karras being alive (in terms of what you see in game). But somehow because you can built a headcannon around it that it did matter, you think it's important (until Bioware shows your consequence in DA:X and then there are complaints Bioware watered down the choices). But that's always the same MO.

[KiwiQuiche]

Yeah, give me a chance to say 'fcuk ya'll" if either side proves to be nutty extremists. Sure, some of my Hawke's were all "free mages" but they wouldn't hesitate to gut the psycho mages or let reasonable Templars go.

Saw some people bring up Fallout New Vegas; great thing is you can kill EVERYONE except for two characters, Yes Man and the Gun Runners Vendatron. You can kill everyone else, just murderlize the entire Mojave. True, not a very...um...plot focused game after that, but hey, you have the all out option.

[Bail_Darilar]

I agree with this. The ending to DA2 should have had more variation. Now I don't disagree with there being 2 endings (which lead to the same outcome), but you shold have been given a few more choices which lead to variations in the events that occurred in the endgame, for example more should have been made of companions opposing viewpoints to your decision with who to side. And you have more situations in which you can establish that your allegiance isn't completely with either side. I liked if you sided with the templars you could choose the fate of two mages and that gave the endgame all the difference. These choice would eventually have outcomes in either battle for example those mages would help you against meredith or orsino. It's just the little things that let the endgame down.

Modifié par Bail_Darilar, 25 novembre 2012 - 02:40 .

[Montana]

Taint Master wrote...

This isn't a very realistic request. Real life is full of dualities.

Look at the last presidential election. You had to go Democrat or Republican. There is no middle ground.

You could technically vote independent, but that's an obvious waste. I like the fact that Bioware doesn't always allow for fence sitting.

That's in the US, which isn't the whole world.
In Sweden we have 9 (unless I've forgotten one) parties in the goverment.
If you get more than 4% in the election, your party is in the goverment, less than 4% and you're out.

Just because the US has a bipartisan system doesn't mean the world is made up from dualities.
What you call fence-sitting doesn't exist in Sweden, we have choises ranging from right to left.

[Cimeas]

I would LOVE to make this choice. A truly difficult decision.

[saintjimmy43]

How about a synthesis ending, where all the mages and all the templars reconstruct their dna to - wait.
wait, nevermind.

[Annie_Dear]

Rojahar wrote...

Don't worry, I guarantee whatever big choice there is, it will lead to the world ending up pretty much the same regardless of which you choose.

Sadly, this.

[nightscrawl]

Statulos wrote...

Taint Master wrote...

This isn't a very realistic request. Real life is full of dualities.

Look at the last presidential election. You had to go Democrat or Republican. There is no middle ground.

You could technically vote independent, but that's an obvious waste. I like the fact that Bioware doesn't always allow for fence sitting.

You didn´t HAVE TO vote. Just like Hawke could have said ok, I´m leaving.

Well that's boring. Also, there is the concept of picking the "lesser of two evils." You will want to help the lesser one, so the most evil does not win and completely destroy everything.

An example of a "lesser of two evils" thought process:
* Side with mages - blood magic and demons are really bad, but not ALL of the mages in this circle are responsible for the goings on, there are children there who are innocents, and Meredith is too bat-sht crazy to side with.
* Side with templars - Meredith may be totally bat-sht crazy, but we can't let these mages live so that more harm will come from their unrestrained use of blood magic, and Anders's actions show to what extreme lengths mages will go to be "free."

So, you analyze each side for their pros and cons and PICK ONE. Or even if you eliminate the pros completely, which con is the worst, and so should be avoided? Life is full of tough choices, and most entertainment would be boring if it didn't have some major conflict.

The final choice at the end never bothered me. They prepared the player well in advance that you will have to eventually pick a side. Anders states this directly, and the opening scene of Act 3 foretold as much. I would have preferred a neutral path that led to the final ending choice, which was never an option. I was left with deciding each on a case-by-case basis, helping some mages while turning in others.

[Helena Tylena]

Rojahar wrote...

Don't worry, I guarantee whatever big choice there is, it will lead to the world ending up pretty much the same regardless of which you choose.

As opposed to... Origins? Mass Effect?

[eye basher]

What people don't get is that DA2 was never about hawke your just seeing things from his or her point of view.

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

I wouldn't mind having to choose between what OP is describing, however I don't think the choices necessarily have to lead to either an extremely oppressive Chantry or a similarly oppressive Magocracy. I can an imagine a third choice as well, a concerted effort by both parties to reform the existing system to make it more equitable for mages which would restrict Templars' arbitrary powers and create some sort of due process for mages accused of apostasy; also drawing distinction between apostasy and blood magic.

That said, radically different endings that change the political landscape seem unlikely as it complicates the world too much for the sequels when you factor in things like save file transfers and creating a coherent default world for new players.

Modifié par The Teryn of Whatever, 26 novembre 2012 - 03:49 .

[TJPags]

In Exile wrote...

TJPags wrote...
However, choices you make in those games
impact the games themselves.  Dark Ritual or not?  Keep or lose
Alistair?  Live or die?  Defend the Keep or Amaranthine.  There are
more.  And some only impact the path - elves or wolves survice, what
companions do you have, etc.

All of those choices are irrelevant. Do you see the OGB in the game? What does it do? Give you a slightly different epilogue scene, that has as much unique content as the cutscenes you get between siding with Meredith vs. Orisino. Live or die is exactly the same content as OGB. Dalish? Just some changes at the Dalish camp.

That's totally on par with Feynriel in DA2 or Ser Karras being alive (in terms of what you see in game). But somehow because you can built a headcannon around it that it did matter, you think it's important (until Bioware shows your consequence in DA:X and then there are complaints Bioware watered down the choices). But that's always the same MO.

The Dark Ritual is irrelevant?  It only changes whether your PC lives or dies at the end of the game.  Pretty relevant, that.  To me, anyway.  Given the import feature (and putting aside the ability to ressurect a dead warden) it becomes more relevant.

Not one option in DA2 had anything close to that impact on DA2. 

You can't stop Anders - you can kill Loghain.  To me, that's different.

[TJPags]

eye basher wrote...

What people don't get is that DA2 was never about hawke your just seeing things from his or her point of view.

Except the marketing sure made it sound that way: "Plot your rise to power as the Champion of Kirkwall" certainly implied, to me, that I'd have the option to choose how I became important, and what I did with that power.

I agree that DA2 was not actually about Hawke, it was more a story told that simply had Hawke in it.

My problem is that what we got sure doesn't seem like what we were told we were getting.

[SpunkyMonkey]

Just ignore DA:2 like I do. It's much like Rocky 5 and the Phantom Menace - in an alternate dimension where everything is perfect it doesn't exist.

[schalafi]

The choice I don't want to make is possibly having to buy a new pc to play this game. I have a good pc with plenty of ram, but it's an xp single core and can't use DX-11. So I hope I can still play, even if I have to set everything on "low".

[schalafi]

schalafi wrote...

The choice I don't want to make is possibly having to buy a new pc to play this game. I have a good pc with plenty of ram, but it's an xp, 32 bit, single core and can't use DX-11. So I hope I can still play, even if I have to set everything on "low".