116 réponses à ce sujet

[Cain Corvin]

I totally agree with everything in tre article!

[Pelle6666]

That's about it, yes. I also want them to tone down the "hit a button and something awesome happens" -factor. I loved how combat worked and looked in DA:O and Awakening, sure there were room for improvement but lightning fast charges and matrix moves was not what the game lacked. Realism please!! That's what made DA:O so bad ass, never felt like the combat was real or dangerous in DAII, it only felt like colorful transport to the next dialog.

[Lotion Soronarr]

ScarMK wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...


I really don't care about having total control over every important event. "Oh, I couldn't save Hawkes mother..bohohoooo". Suck it up princess.
I think a player never should have such control.
.

Those are more annoying given that you aren't given a chance to try and stop it.  I'm not asking for an option for her to be saved, but **** Hawke could've easily at least tried to do something.  "You want to date?  Go for it, just be careful.  There's a killer on the loose, who preys on women exclusively."  "Hey Aveline, mother wants to start dating, mind helping me keep an eye on her?  I'll owe you one!"  "Hey mom, update on that killer, turns out he lures them in with white lillies, so if you ever receive any, let me or Aveline know ASAP!"  It's a real kick in the teeth when you do the Ninette quest in the first act and have some knowledge of him.

The disappointment isn't that you can't.  It's the fact  that Hawke is a teen with a  "Oh, it'll never happen to me" mentality.

Which is how things work generally in RL too.
It's easy in hindsight, but how would you prevent something like that from ahppenign in RL? You can't. You sure as hell can't follow someone 24/7 (not unless you have a life).
"Be carefull" does nothing against blood magic mind you.

Which is always a problem. In hindisght, the player always goes "Icould have done X" if I knew then.. but oyu didn't, now did you?

[Androme]

 Agree with everything

[Navasha]

Only ones I agree with are the first couple and we already know that Bioware has acknowledged that reuse of maps was a mistake and won't be a problem in DA:I

The point about giving the player control... sure... to a point. Something absolutely should be out of the players control. However, I would love to see actual consequences for the things we do control. There should be TOUGH choices to make from time to time that play out differently.

As for the bisexual thing.... who cares. Let players romance who they want. I would rather have 4 romance options to choose from than only 1 or 2.

[NasreddinHodja]

I like tough choices. Not in the sense that they will have far-reaching consequences, but in the sense that we should actually have to think hard about which one is the "right" choice. And so far Bioware has shown that they're good at coming up with dilemmas like that.

[Anomaly-]

Shevy_001 wrote...

The sad thing about that article: it's just the tip of the iceberg.

This.

I agree with pretty much everything in the article, but there are other issues that are a bigger deal to me than some of these. For example, I agree about the bisexual argument, as it's just a little hard to believe that every possible love interest would happen to be bisexual. However, I can live with it. The shallow gameplay and character customization, I cannot.

Modifié par Anomaly-, 06 décembre 2012 - 12:34 .

[iOnlySignIn]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

don't write bisexual characters who view relationships with men and women differently

In other words don't write bisexual characters who have social intelligence greater than zero. <_<

[NasreddinHodja]

Anomaly- wrote...

Shevy_001 wrote...

The sad thing about that article: it's just the tip of the iceberg.

This.

I agree with pretty much everything in the article, but there are other issues that are a bigger deal to me than some of these. For example, I agree about the bisexual argument, as it's just a little hard to believe that every possible love interest would happen to be bisexual. However, I can live with it. The shallow gameplay and character customization, I cannot.

I like to see it more as Schrodinger sexuality.  For example, if you're a male Hawke not pursuing a romantic relationship with Fenris, we get zero indication that Fenris is attracted to guys.  It's slightly different than bisexuality, and of course this method has its own problems if you're into immersions and think characters exist independent of the story being told, but ultimately I don't think it's that major of an issue.

Shallow gameplay I can see that, but I think how acceptable the character customization options are, that depends on individual taste.  I think it has comparable customization to Bioware's other major game, Mass Effect.

[Sharn01]

Solmanian wrote...

Fox In The Box wrote...

I disagree with eveything in this article apart from the recycled areas, and I cut Bioware a lot of slack there seeing as they had only, what, an 11 month development cycle?

I'm not even going to touch on what she said about the bisexual love interests other than that I'd really like people to stop making assumptions of what bisexual people are like and how we relate to people of either gender.

I noticed a trend in bioware development cycles in regards to trilogies: You start of with a new game, not completely sure if it will even be successful, so you're being cautious with implementation of new ideas. End result: a not-too-original game, but of high quality and therefore successful.
Next you have a sequel. More confident in their product, bioware "goes crazy" and tries to change almost everything in the gameplay department, including adding things they were too afraid to add in the original in the fear of how they would've been recieved. End result: An innovative and high quality game, and naturally successful. But they recieve alot of complaints about changing too much from the original (mind you, not neccessarily meaning that those are for the worse).
Finaly you have the last game of the trilogy. Bioware listens to the fans feedback by combining the best features from both predeccessors and removing the most complained about features. The result is a game that by istelf is easily the game of the year. But, when it has to face the impossible expectations created by it's prequels encounters outrage...

Nobody likes endings. If you liked the ending, than you never realy liked it to begin with. (the one exception being "the shawshank redemption")

Predictions towards DA3:
1. it's gonna be a great game.
2. Alot of people gonna hate it...

No point in fighting it. That just how the internet works. That's why people think "empire" was better than "return".

Dragon Age isnt a trilogy, you also need to do something more then once for a trend to start to develope, so far, Bioware has only ever done one trilogy. 

Your analysis of the trilogy is all opinion as well, which is fine, but using it to say that everyone who didn't it is mistaken or incorrect is taking it a bit far.

[Pandaman102]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

I really don't care about having total control over every important event. "Oh, I couldn't save Hawkes mother..bohohoooo". Suck it up princess.
I think a player never should have such control.

If you don't like stories with player agency, that's fine because it's a style and genre of game that has plenty of fans and is quite successful. The problem is that's not what DA2 was advertised as. It was advertised as:

Embark upon an all-new adventure that takes place across an entire decade and shapes itself around every decision you make.

So, great, you don't mind the lack of player agency. That's not what's on the tin. Players like myself bought the game expecting that, we didn't get it, that's not an opinion, that's a fact (and false advertising). Of course we're going to complain about it, you don't like it?

Suck it up, princess.

And go defend a game that doesn't actually use what you're bashing as a selling point.

[Sol Downer]

There's nothing wrong with the elves...

[samgurl775]

Really good article, it covers my biggest issues with DA2. Specifically #4 - I want the freedom from Origins back more than anything.

[dorianpervus]

If Bioware wants to make a good game.. They need to listen to that article and ignore the people saying DA2 was a good game.

They need to take Dragon Age Origins and improve upon THAT game.

[Patchwork]

Schrodinger Sexuality is a good way of putting it. Yes all the companions being bisexual is unrealistic put as a game mechanic that means a player can romance who ever they feel is a better fit for their PC I'm all for it.

[Wullo]

Oh please, would you stop with the irrational praise of Origins?? For the love of god..
Player agency, suuuure..
Origins did the same thing DAII did, only ppl think that deciding who is the king of orzammar is more important than deciding to make a half-elf super-mage tranquil or letting him go to Tevinter (Newsflash, it really isn't, in the grand scheme of things, because you will NEVER know what happens in Orzammar based on your decision - apart from the epilogue cards in Origins which since have been proved to be only 'rumors')

But seriously.. I love DA:O and I love DAII and i get soooo annoyed when ppl whine about 'losing agency' or 'nothing i did matters' oh, cmon! In Origins I could not even rp that my mage really did not give a sh*t what Jowan did and she was just happy to see him again. I COULD NOT. Every option was either hostile or cold.

Or Arl Eamon.. That is my main gripe xD Even if you defile the ashes "your character takes a pinch of the ashes". Why?? I did not want to! The game just took over and TOLD ME what my character did, when I chose the option (defile the ashes).
I want Bann Teagan to be the new Arl. One of the knights even says something like "We should heal the arl or let Bann Teagan lead". Well, I could not.. and there are many MANY instances like this where I felt that a perfectly reasonable choice was left out of Origins, around the same amount of times that I felt with DAII.

[Kidd]

Wullo wrote...

Oh please, would you stop with the irrational praise of Origins?? For the love of god..
Player agency, suuuure..
Origins did the same thing DAII did, only ppl think that deciding who is the king of orzammar is more important than deciding to make a half-elf super-mage tranquil or letting him go to Tevinter (Newsflash, it really isn't, in the grand scheme of things, because you will NEVER know what happens in Orzammar based on your decision - apart from the epilogue cards in Origins which since have been proved to be only 'rumors')

But seriously.. I love DA:O and I love DAII and i get soooo annoyed when ppl whine about 'losing agency' or 'nothing i did matters' oh, cmon! In Origins I could not even rp that my mage really did not give a sh*t what Jowan did and she was just happy to see him again. I COULD NOT. Every option was either hostile or cold.

Or Arl Eamon.. That is my main gripe xD Even if you defile the ashes "your character takes a pinch of the ashes". Why?? I did not want to! The game just took over and TOLD ME what my character did, when I chose the option (defile the ashes).
I want Bann Teagan to be the new Arl. One of the knights even says something like "We should heal the arl or let Bann Teagan lead". Well, I could not.. and there are many MANY instances like this where I felt that a perfectly reasonable choice was left out of Origins, around the same amount of times that I felt with DAII.

Shh, you're making too much sense

Honestly I think it largely boils down to the lack of multiple endings. Since the two endings are mostly just a few line variations of another, people get the idea they had no choice. When they think back to DAO they see the dark ritual and the status of Alistair and Loghain, and how these choices change the end game a lot. This will colour how they see the rest of the game thinking back to it.

I'm not meaning to sound belittling. The actual game is sadly not as important in the end as how the gamer perceives it. For example, I know Skyrim is a great game, cause it's obviously got a lot of loving man hours put into it and tons of people love it. Yet I can't find anything to do and feel bored and lonely. To me, the game is bad. That view of my own will trump the "actual game" of Skyrim no matter what when I'm thinking or talking about it. There's nothing wrong with that, 'tis just how things work.

Modifié par KiddDaBeauty, 06 décembre 2012 - 09:35 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

Pandaman102 wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

I really don't care about having total control over every important event. "Oh, I couldn't save Hawkes mother..bohohoooo". Suck it up princess.
I think a player never should have such control.

If you don't like stories with player agency, that's fine because it's a style and genre of game that has plenty of fans and is quite successful. The problem is that's not what DA2 was advertised as. It was advertised as:

Embark upon an all-new adventure that takes place across an entire decade and shapes itself around every decision you make.

So, great, you don't mind the lack of player agency. That's not what's on the tin. Players like myself bought the game expecting that, we didn't get it, that's not an opinion, that's a fact (and false advertising). Of course we're going to complain about it, you don't like it?

Suck it up, princess.

And go defend a game that doesn't actually use what you're bashing as a selling point.

There is difference between "player agency" and "I want to change any event as I see fit, regardless if it makes sense forh te character or not".

[Pandaman102]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
There is difference between "player agency" and "I want to change any event as I see fit, regardless if it makes sense forh te character or not".

Ah, so you're only specifically talking about that one instance and not player control overall? While I don't agree that Hawke's mother's fate must be set in stone, I apologize for mistaking your statement as a generalization.

[Pandaman102]

Wullo wrote...

Oh please, would you stop with the irrational praise of Origins?? For the love of god..
Player agency, suuuure..[...]

Is this directed at me? I'm assuming it is because it looks like I'm the only person who actually says "player agency" but at the same time I'm wondering if it's not because I didn't even mention anything about DA:O. I merely pointed out that one of the key features was false.

To be perfectly fair, DA:O also has a similar key feature and people can argue it's also false. However in regards to the lore state of Origins I would say it at least tried to deliver (your choice of Orzammar's king, the werewolves' curse, the sanctity of a holy relic, who should rule Ferelden, state of certain groups in the epilogue, etc.) even though it doesn't show as a game mechanic. That's enough for some people, not for others, and I recall DA2's scope was reduced to one city so the development team could actually address that complaint

I honestly don't see as many opportunities in DA2 to make lore changes as I did in DA:O. If I think back on all of the choices (that I can remember, I know I'm missing a few) in DA2, I recall: you get to determine if your sibling dies, becomes a Grey Warden, or a Templar/mage; if Aveline starts up an office romance; if Isabella runs away forever, comes back, or gets shipped off with the Qunari (only way the Qunari general lives); if you shank Anders or not (and lose Sebastian, but honestly it's perfectly acceptable that Sebastian won't accept his mother-figure's murderer being spared); and if where the half-elf dreamshaper (or whatever he's called) winds up going. Almost all of them are very personal decisions that only influence the lives of individuals (possible exception being Isabella and the Qunari, given how important that book is), which may appear more immediate and obvious, but doesn't even seem to be trying to shape Hawke's adventure.

Well, unless you consider DA2 a dating sim with combat mechanics added in, that is

Modifié par Pandaman102, 06 décembre 2012 - 11:05 .

[esper]

Pandaman102 wrote...

Wullo wrote...

Oh please, would you stop with the irrational praise of Origins?? For the love of god..
Player agency, suuuure..[...]

Is this directed at me? I'm assuming it is because it looks like I'm the only person who actually says "player agency" but at the same time I'm wondering if it's not because I didn't even mention anything about DA:O. I merely pointed out that one of the key features was false.

To be perfectly fair, DA:O also has a similar key feature and people can argue it's also false. However in regards to the lore state of Origins I would say it at least tried to deliver (your choice of Orzammar's king, the werewolves' curse, the sanctity of a holy relic, who should rule Ferelden, state of certain groups in the epilogue, etc.) even though it doesn't show as a game mechanic. That's enough for some people, not for others, and I recall DA2's scope was reduced to one city so the development team could actually address that complaint

I honestly don't see as many opportunities in DA2 to make lore changes as I did in DA:O. If I think back on all of the choices (that I can remember, I know I'm missing a few) in DA2, I recall: you get to determine if your sibling dies, becomes a Grey Warden, or a Templar/mage; if Aveline starts up an office romance; if Isabella runs away forever, comes back, or gets shipped off with the Qunari (only way the Qunari general lives); if you shank Anders or not (and lose Sebastian, but honestly it's perfectly acceptable that Sebastian won't accept his mother-figure's murderer being spared); and if where the half-elf dreamshaper (or whatever he's called) winds up going. Almost all of them are very personal decisions that only influence the lives of individuals (possible exception being Isabella and the Qunari, given how important that book is), which may appear more immediate and obvious, but doesn't even seem to be trying to shape Hawke's adventure.

Well, unless you consider DA2 a dating sim with combat mechanics added in, that is

'

You make zero lore changes in da:o expect maybe at the whole Orzommar quest. In fact you just enforce status quo which has been treathened by the arrival of the darkspawn. All the boons refuses to change the lore since a single King/Queen do not have the authority to change the status quo and if you read the epilogs all the changes alreayd there begins to reform back to status quo and in da2 it is made even more obvious..

Da2 blow the lore up by having the circles ruined.

[Wullo]

I am a forum lurker. I generally don't post on any forums, just observe.. xD So my post wasn't directed at anyone in particular, I just started off of the things ppl (like you Pandaman) said recently. It's my general opinion on the matter.

Yes, you are absolutely right that DAII did not allow you to make those seemingly important choices that Origins did. And the only important one (who you side with at the end) was kinda questionable with the whole Orsino thing (which I hated).
But. Your lore changes from DA:O will never get "screen time" other than in a cameo or something insignificant, or more likely will only get mentioned once or twice (like how Varric mentions the current king of Orzammar) and that's it.
Guess for me the fact that I don't really see how those important decisions I made has changed the world makes them less important..
But this has been discussed before like a million times I'm sure, so whatever.
Everyone likes different things, guess I just don't like that it has become a "thing" on the internets that DAII is crap.

And my all-time-lovingitopieces-favorite game is Dragon Age: Origins I just happen to like the sequel too.

Oh, and I have NO IDEA what's a dating sim is 

Modifié par Wullo, 06 décembre 2012 - 11:38 .

[Pandaman102]

esper wrote...
You make zero lore changes in da:o expect maybe at the whole Orzommar quest. In fact you just enforce status quo which has been treathened by the arrival of the darkspawn. All the boons refuses to change the lore since a single King/Queen do not have the authority to change the status quo and if you read the epilogs all the changes alreayd there begins to reform back to status quo and in da2 it is made even more obvious..

Da2 blow the lore up by having the circles ruined.

Wait, wait, wait. DA2 destroying lore changes in DA:O is not DA:O's fault. It's DA2's fault. My argument about DA:O's lore changes are entirely about DA:O as a self-contained game. Much like how I'm not making the fallicious argument that DA2's choices might have different results but we don't know because DA3 hasn't come out it. It's not a trilogy, it was never intended to be a trilogy like Mass Effect, don't judge it like a trilogy.

That being said, the Dwarven Commoner Warden becomes Paragon - that's huge - and uplifts a bunch of people in Orzammar. That's not overturned in the epilogue; the Denerim Alienage not seeing better treatment in the epilogue is due to a bug (thanks for patching things, Bioware); the lands granted to the Dalish Warden's people aren't taken away (in Origins' epilogue, we're not talking about DA2's ignoring of choices); and... ugh, why don't you just look it up on the wiki?

[Wullo]

And just to try to be a bit on-topic.. about that article.
I could see the author's side right until she mentions the "bwaah, every companion is bisexual, it's stupid" Why is it such a big deal? I see this brought up as a negative of DAII every.friggin.time on other gaming sites.. I've always assumed most of the complainers are hetero males whose masculinity is threatened because a pixel-guy just hit on their pixel-dude in a video game...

But since then I've read opinions on this here on the BSN and it looks like some ppl hate it for some other reason? (and the author of this particular article is also female) I just don't know what that reason could be?

Anders said it best:
"I've always believed people fall in love with a whole person, not just a body. Why would you shy away from loving someone just because they're like you?"
Hawke is just awesome, everyone  Hawke.

(I'm not trying to start the bisexual-or-not topic again, I.. I just.. ok, honestly I just really wanted to post that Anders quote..  )

Modifié par Wullo, 06 décembre 2012 - 12:08 .

[Pandaman102]

Wullo wrote...
[...]
But. Your lore changes from DA:O will never get "screen time" other than in a cameo or something insignificant, or more likely will only get mentioned once or twice (like how Varric mentions the current king of Orzammar) and that's it.
Guess for me the fact that I don't really see how those important decisions I made has changed the world makes them less important..
[...]

Indeed, as I said that's fine for some, not so much for others. Part of DA2's design decision was to give those decisions more screen time, which was enough for some people, but the limiting of scope of those decisions (more personal than city or adventure-changing, contrary to advertising) made it much worse for others. Obviously I fall in the latter category.

But this has been discussed before like a million times I'm sure, so whatever.
Everyone likes different things, guess I just don't like that it has become a "thing" on the internets that DAII is crap.

That it has and objectively speaking it is unfair for DA2 to be called crap. I wouldn't call it great for a variety of reasons, but certainly not crap.

Oh, and I have NO IDEA what's a dating sim is 

Not sure if serious...