143 réponses à ce sujet

[burning salaradile]

I feel strange making decisions for a character who has a preset, predetermined background, characterization, etc. Creating a character, like in most Bioware games, makes it easier for me to rationalize which choices the character will make, rather than in others, where I feel like they should be making choices without my input (because they're not my character).

Modifié par burning salaradile, 03 décembre 2012 - 08:34 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I feel strange making decisions for a character who has a preset,
predetermined background, characterization, etc. Creating a character,
like in most Bioware games, makes it easier for me to rationalize which
choices the character will make, rather than in others, where I feel
like they should be making choices without my input (because they're not
my character).

I don't find it too difficult regardless of what level of control the player has on character creation.

I had no problems making decisions for Lee in The Walking Dead, just as I didn't have difficulty making decisions for the Vault Dweller in Fallout.


Why do you find it challenging? It would seem, then, that the only way you could effectively feel comfortable making decisions for a character is iff the character is effectively a blank slate.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 03 décembre 2012 - 08:40 .

[Cain Corvin]

Of cause I would like the game to feel as my own story

[Maria Caliban]

I assume the problem is that you want to make choices that are true to the character. If the character is someone else's creation, you want enough information about that character to weigh out the value of each choice.

For example, if there was an RPG where you played Hamlet, someone who'd seen the play would have a much better grasp of what the character might appropriately do than someone who hadn't.

[DaringMoosejaw]

Video games, in my opinion, don't relay the 'creating your own character' very well at all. To me, the entire point of creating your own character is to use your imagination - the entire construct of games is to give you something to dive in to and visualize, it conflicts. So with me, when a game tries really hard to let you do alllll the characterizing and blatantly avoids giving you any of its own, it feels...empty. My character doesn't feel like he's a part of the universe, he feels like the ol' Ageless-Faceless-Gender-Neutral-Culturally-Ambiguous-Adventure-Person. DA:O certainly bothered me there as most responses the warden had was a blank stare.

If I wanted to create my own character, I'd take it to a medium that encourages imagination. Like tabletop or MUSHes. Doesn't get more open than that.

[fchopin]

I play both kinds of games so i don’t mind if my character is a set character or player made character.
Roleplaying for me does not depend if a character is premade or not, it is what choices and options are in the game. I like character creation as i can play male\\female and change a few face options but there are very few choices to shape a character in Bioware games and is mostly superficial as far as i can see.

Mass Effect has a better story in the trilogy because Shepart has a set character in the game.

On the my story point it is very simple, i have never played my story as i am not the creator of the world so can only play what the developers allow in the game.

[Frankaidenryan]

I don't think there's that much issue with having a somewhat 'pre-set' character. Even in Dragon Age Origins, if you focus on the (somewhat the default) human noble origin, you were ALWAYS the youngest Cousland. HOW you played Cousland junior was entirely up to the player, but you were never anyone else.

Of course, this is also somewhat true of the other origins that were playable. But it's not that different from Hawke.

[Fisto The Sexbot]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Removing the ability to play a half-orc is not 'dumbing down.' 

Yes it is.

Modifié par Fisto The Sexbot, 03 décembre 2012 - 11:41 .

[upsettingshorts]

Fisto The Sexbot wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...
Removing the ability to play a half-orc is not 'dumbing down.' 

Yes it is.

Then it is just as I suspected, the phrase "dumbing down" is meaningless and empty.

[DaringMoosejaw]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Fisto The Sexbot wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...
Removing the ability to play a half-orc is not 'dumbing down.' 

Yes it is.

Then it is just as I suspected, the phrase "dumbing down" is meaningless and empty.

"Dumbing Down" = Doing things I don't like.

That's pretty meaningful, I thought that was obvious!

[Fisto The Sexbot]

If the sequel removes a race option from the previous game then I think calling it 'dumbing down' would be appropriate in most cases.

[Sol Downer]

Fisto The Sexbot wrote...

If the sequel removes a race option from the previous game then I think calling it 'dumbing down' would be appropriate in most cases.

It's not correct at all, in any case. Removing race options does NOT do this.


dumb down

[*]make too simple: to make something less intellectually challenging


Are you intellectually challenged when playing as a human, elf, or drawf, one more than the other? No, I don't think so. What they've done is take something you like and remove it, they did not dumb it down.

Modifié par Ultimashade, 03 décembre 2012 - 12:59 .

[Wulfram]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I had no problems making decisions for Lee in The Walking Dead

I found Lee very difficult in places because I didn't know enough about the circumstances of his conviction.

edit:  I can make decisions for a pre-determined character fine, if I've got enough information - and I don't get something from their past sprung on me late in the game that screws up my characterisation. 

But I do struggle to make different decisions - if they're the same character then it hards to justify making different choices for them in a subsequent playthrough.

Modifié par Wulfram, 03 décembre 2012 - 01:16 .

[Cutlass Jack]

Its just not an RPG for me if I can't create the protaganist. Might be a fine game, but it just doesnt feel like an RPG.

That said, I felt DA2 was as much an RPG as BG2 was. The amount of race options in the character creator doesn't change that. Especially when you had far more visual control over your character in DA2. And your background was equally as fixed. In both you had predetermined family and environment you were raised in with a very slight variance based on class. It was the choices you made after the start that determined your character's personality.

My 5 Hawkes were nothing like each other really. Neither were my Baalspawns. But comparatively, I had a hard time making multiple Mikes from Alpha Protocol because the visual options were so minor and I had no name control. Even though there was a huge amount of C&C in that game. I loved the game, but secondary playthroughs I found I made many of the same decisions.

Which I guess corresponds to what Wulfram was saying about multiple playthroughs. It didn't help that AP's Framed Narrative sequence worked more to make the character feel less like my own than DA2's did. Since Varric was obviously exaggarating, but your predetermined hero is the narrator of AP's intro.

Modifié par Cutlass Jack, 03 décembre 2012 - 02:23 .

[Zobo]

I love blank slates in RPGs.
Pre-defined main characters kill roleplaingness (if it's even a word) for me. I still might enjoin a game, but as a different genre. For example, I think Deus EX: Human Revolution was an awesome action/stealth game with only some RPG elements here and there. Not a proper RPG at all.

[Medhia Nox]

It's interesting what people seem to mean when they say "My story".

Being a tabletop RPer highlights the limitations of digital RPGs.

The best I look for is getting a character to fit as close as possible to the one I envision playing.

[ShaggyWolf]

DA:O's origin stories influence my dialogue and story choices just as much as Hawke's background did in DA:2. As a City elf in DA:O, it makes sense to me for my character to have strong family values, and despite being a pragmatic BA in most of the game, he argues with Morrigan about things like love, because it was a part of his upbringing. So even though my character does some pretty screwed up things in DA:O, there's always limits on how far he goes, because it would be unrealistic for him to do certain things, based on the background that Bioware gave him.

It's kind of the same in DA:2. I feel like Hawke would obviously care a great deal about his family, and the care he has for his mage sister causes my Hawke to have a strong pro-mage-freedom sentiment. Again, because of the background Bioware gave him.

I'm fine with that. As players of these games, we're usually going to be in favor of having as much freedom and control as possible within the game. But Dragon age's writers need control too. They write a story, and the protagonist needs to be an important part of said story. That character needs a reason for being there, and certain pre-defined motivations for seeing the story through.

It's give and take with these games because it has to be, and it works just fine with me. I can sit here all day and name characters I'd like to be in Dragon age. An elven mercenary, an Antivan Crow, a Qunari warrior, etc. It doesn't matter because the DA team needs to tell a specific story within the Dragon age universe, and that means I will end up playing whatever role the protagonist needs to. That means there might be certain restrictions imposed, such as only being able to be human in DA3, but maybe that's because my hypothetical Qunari warlord simply wouldn't make sense doing any of the things the DA3 protagonist will do. It doesn't make it less of a RPG to me.

I wouldn't say that these games are "my story." Because they are obviously Bioware's stories too. But I still have a large degree of creative ownership over my characters and what they do in these games. I think of dragon age stories more as a cooperative venture. "Our story," if you will.

[BubbleDncr]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I feel strange making decisions for a character who has a preset,
predetermined background, characterization, etc. Creating a character,
like in most Bioware games, makes it easier for me to rationalize which
choices the character will make, rather than in others, where I feel
like they should be making choices without my input (because they're not
my character).

I don't find it too difficult regardless of what level of control the player has on character creation.

I had no problems making decisions for Lee in The Walking Dead, just as I didn't have difficulty making decisions for the Vault Dweller in Fallout.


Why do you find it challenging? It would seem, then, that the only way you could effectively feel comfortable making decisions for a character is iff the character is effectively a blank slate.

For Lee in the Walking Dead, I tend to completely forget about his past when I'm playing it.

Though as someone who plays as Mr. Nice Guy Lee, I think if I really thought about it a lot, I would possibly start thinking to myself, "well, my Lee would never have done what he did before I had control over him..."

But I guess I don't think about it that much.

[esper]

Wulfram wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I had no problems making decisions for Lee in The Walking Dead

I found Lee very difficult in places because I didn't know enough about the circumstances of his conviction.

edit:  I can make decisions for a pre-determined character fine, if I've got enough information - and I don't get something from their past sprung on me late in the game that screws up my characterisation. 

But I do struggle to make different decisions - if they're the same character then it hards to justify making different choices for them in a subsequent playthrough.

If I play a premade characther I always just assume that all the choices are poteintally in chacter. I don't believe that if granted with the same choice twice people would always automatically pick the same thing even if the circomstances were the same.

[frostajulie]

RainbowPuppy wrote...

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...


Unless the character I am playing has amnesia I hate it when other characters reference events in my characters past as if they are supposed to mean something to me, personally I prefer the wandering stranger in a foreign land as both the player and the character know little about the place they have just arrived in and neither have any relationship with any of the characters who currently inhabit it, puts the character and the player on the same level which I feel is important in an RPG, Amnesia works well in this regard as well.

Sure. This particular playstyle, however, makes me feel as though I've just been farted into existence by the primordial soup, with no actual connection to the world or the people in it at all. There are quite a few games for people who do like the "stranger in a strange land" way of playing - Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout: NV among others - and I personally don't want this for Bioware's games.

:mellow:
Me too.

[henkez3]

I like both the older styles like BG and Fallout games where you character is largely your own doing both in regards to class and race as well as the choices you make in the story and such but playing a character from a set framework within a game that has a set framework works very well for me too as the choices and story can still be just as interesting.

DA:O and A was more like the older style RPGs and DA2 was more like, say The Witcher in the story and choice department

Although in DA:O I felt like the question was "What did your Grey Warden do?" and in DA2 it was more like "Who was your Hawke?"

In the end I like both, the quality of the game is the most important factor.

[SpunkyMonkey]

Some really interesting views, I guess it's as much about the way that you do it as it is what you do.

I'm just playing through ME2 for my 3rd time though and, after my 3rd DA:O playthrough it feels significantly inferior both in terms of RPG elements and overall game. A different kind of game so fair do's, but the direction both ME & DA have taken without a shadow of a doubt is inferior to either's starting point.

[withneelandi]

For me, the "your story or someone elses" issue boils down to the "blank slate" approach we get in Skyrim where other than your circumstances at the start of the game the player is given almost no infomration about the player character and a massive variety in race, appearance, and gender options the players background and motivations are essentially left up to the players imagination.

Then you get the polar opposite in a games like walking dead where the protagonist is pre definded, the player has controll over that character for a pre defined amount of time and usually and pre set "decison points".

These two styles aren't inherantly good or bad but they give the player a very different experience,and have difference strengths and weaknesses. I think the former is the modern video game ancestor of the traditional role playing game while the latter feels more like a modern choose your own adventure book, the author always has complete controll of the experience the player will have, we just choose which pre definded experience we will have, while in the former the player has far more "creative controll" (for want of a better word).I'm personally far more interested in games which lean in the direction of giving me as much controll over the story/character as possible, I think that idea of a "creative partnership" to make your own story with the help of the authors of the game is something video games can do that no other medium can.

Both of the Dragon Age games fall somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, but Dragon age 2 certainly grabbed back some of the authorial controll that origins gave to the player. This arguably is why dragon age 2 is the stronger pure narrative of the two but for me its also why dragon age origins is the better game. Put simply, there are no end of mediums where a writer can tell us a story, but few where we can participate in a story or interact in a fictional world. I think video games should play on this inherant srength of the medium not back away from it. Its really a case of how the writers want the player to interact with the story they have created and balancing controll as a writer against giving the player freedom to shape that story.

I adore the freedom of something like Skyrim but sometimes it is so "open" that it easy to become "lost" in the narrative you build for your character, with no refference points it becomes easy to loose who the character is and the significance of their actions, as much is "in the players head" the game can't react. In Dragon Age 2, I felt so much of Hawk's back ground and motivations was pre set that I was just viewing different versions of a pre set-narrative with a largely pre determined character, however, this lets the writer add emotional depth to the story with set pieces like the death of the sibling/mother etc.

[Bernhardtbr]

Yeah having a character with a background does limits the character´s development during the game. It´s the same as The Witcher where you are Geralt. Sure you develop the character in the path of sword, magic or alchemy but you are certainly restricted.

In the end it´s a matter of taste and (to a certain extent) having a deeper/less replayable story or having more shallow/more replayable one. I definitedly enjoyed Witcher 2 much more than Oblivion or Morrowind, but total game time I´ve played was less than in either of those. Then again 25 hours is the same as watching the entire Game of Thrones series so far, so they weren´t few hours of fun. No dev can please everyone. The problem is when they TRY to please everyone.

Modifié par Bernhardtbr, 05 décembre 2012 - 11:11 .

[anillee]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

My story, either in the form of free will construction sandbox games or through series of TRUE choices and consequences in story driven mode. I don't give a crap of other people story in my game. If I want other people story, I'd spend 2 hours watching a dvd movie or cinema without pausing.

AMEN.

Modifié par anillee, 05 décembre 2012 - 11:18 .