Allan Schumacher wrote...
Wynne wrote...
The problem is, for there not to be a get out of jail free card doesn't make it more interesting either, and on top of that, it takes our choice away.
Then we agree that whether it is meaningful and interesting is less affected by whether or not there is a choice involved?
I think we agreed that a get out of jail free card isn't the important element. But I don't think whether it is meaningful and interesting has nothing to do with choice. I think choice adds to meaning and interest, to a large degree. Maybe you do, too; I'm not sure from how you worded that.
Allan Schumacher wrote...
It's one thing to say you want more choice (more content is typically never considered bad) in how you respond, or things that lead up to it, or even the ability to go to people and say this is a concern. You can provide all those options and choices whether or not Leandra could be saved.
Frankly, though, I like the idea that not everything works out the way that I would like it to. For some that isn't acceptable (the type that feel if they put in the effort to prevent it, it should be preventable, or they wasted their time), but as a gamer I am perfectly okay with that.
For me, choice lies with what I intend the character to do. That the realities of the world presented in front of me don't allow that to happen is still okay for me.
I think the problem in most cases is convincing the player that it really couldn't have been stopped. Like with Anders--there's a fine line between it coming out of the blue and it being obvious that something was going to go wrong but being powerless to do what you could so easily do to stop it. (Just follow him! Just doggedly search the Cathedral to find out what he was doing there!) Sure, the former makes a person feel betrayed, but for me, it was the latter, and that was extremely frustrating for me.
Maybe Anders should have been more vague, but that invites the player to play along to find out what he's doing. If you can't at that point turn it around and expose his plot and betray him in a sense, then it again feels like the game is forcing you to be dumber than you are. Similar to not being able to switch love interests partway through the game. I know, it all boils down to more sophisticated variables and that takes time and development and all of that, but the more sophisticated your characterizations and plots, the more sophistication must be given to the player character and the player's options, or else you feel that disconnect and it is frustrating. I think it's easier for players to identify this problem than developers, because an admiration for the sophistication already in place, for those beautiful underpinnings, can distract you from what could be done to bring the PC up to the same level. I think writers have to be hard on themselves to truly do their best, to not rest on the laurels of having thought of 34 angles, but always look for the next possible angle, always search for a way to do it even better. Because as you get smarter, your audience is becoming more savvy as well--it's learning from your tactics!
I think we definitely agree that
not everything should work out as the player planned--if it did, that would feel unrealistic and break immersion. But not being able to make the logical decisions and choices is worse. I wish that someone on the DA2 team had thought to themselves, "Won't the player be suspicious enough of Anders' motives that they'll making investigating him a priority?" and had the time and resources necessary to deal with that. I mean, this is an abomination who's sounding more and more fanatical and intense to the point where the writing is geared toward making the player feel like something bad is going to happen, because it is... but then there's no way to address that feeling with actions! That is painful, if you're involved in the story but unable to react to it in a sensible, smart way.
I think I continually have to go back to Fallout and Fallout 2 for examples of what I would call self-aware writing. The writers assume that their audience is probably intelligent (Hey, it's composed of geeks and nerds, after all!) and realizes that intelligent people may well guess what's in store, or be able to think of very clever arguments. It assumes that the player is smart enough to see the gaps in the villain's logic and be able to point them out to him (or will want to choose those options if given, assuming they chose to play a smart character). You can't take back all the bad stuff the villain has already done, but you can dismantle their logic and hand it back to them, broken down. You can, in a sense, be the Irenicus. Cut through the nonsense and play devil's advocate
to the villain himself! That was simply awesome. It must've been hard to write, but it was extremely rewarding. It was rewarding because you feel the writers were assuming you're clever (if you chose to put a lot of points into intelligence, you probably are or at least like feeling clever) and giving you the opportunity to express that, to be genre-savvy.
If choice lies in what you intend the character to do, the Anders Cathedral quest didn't make the grade. I intended for my character to investigate what I knew, without checking any guides or forums or having played before, was going to go horribly wrong because it seemed the only logical, responsible decision. Even had it gone wrong, at least having the choice to
try to stop him or
try to find out what he was doing would have been appreciated. Instead, I felt confused--why would the writers set up an ominous portent with a clear way to nip the situation in the bud before it got too big to stop, but then
deny me the opportunity to even try and fail to do that nipping?
I think we essentially agree here, but for me, it's incredibly important that whatever negative outcomes occur feel either
utterly unavoidable (like an earthquake--I'm not sure a mage could do much about a huge force of nature--or a murder that happened while I was on the other side of the continent that I either couldn't have known was coming or couldn't have prevented because I'm the early-game Bhaalspawn against Irenicus-level badassery) or as if they happened because I had to
choose between two things I wanted. Then, I feel like the game world has done right by me, because I'm sitting there undistracted from the feelings the writers wanted to produce instead of my brain leading my attention back to, "but if I'd been able to just do the reasonable thing in this situation, I might've been able to stop this!" and having the other emotions mix with exasperation.
The intention to produce "the feels", as the kids are saying these days, must always be tempered with logic, reason, and balance. I think the DA2 writers were trying so hard to produce a good storyline which provoked emotions (not at all a bad idea, of course) that they didn't quite think hard enough about what they'd feel in the player's shoes. I feel like they were almost there, but not quite, and that it's part of people's frustration with the game. Because Anders and Leandra didn't feel unavoidable at all (I knew the Anders thing would go wrong, and Leandra being foolish enough to go ga-ga for some psycho when there must be a hundred nice guys in the city reduces sympathy for her) and yet they were.
Being able to make a choice to follow Anders and try to stop him (no matter how it turned out), and meeting Leandra's "new boyfriend" to find out that he seemed charming enough that you'd walk down a dark alley with him without even thinking about it (like the Governor from TWD) would've helped both plotlines a lot.
JamieCOTC wrote...
I do too and that’s why Thessia in ME3 should have been great, but it wasn’t because we had little to no impact on that mission. Back to Leandra, I understand what you are saying, but had there been some choice, save the mother or save a sibling, save the mother or get the killer, etc I think I would have been more engaged in the story. I understand we are dealing w/ two forced choices, but they are still choices. Say it is a choice between Leandra and Bethany, the one who is saved is going to hate Hawke guts for that. So ultimately it’s kind of a lose/lose situation or could be. The point is there is a choice that engages the player. It’s not just leading the player down the garden path and then bam. I can get that from a movie. I would rather not have that in a game.
I really like and agree with what you're saying here.
Direwolf0294 wrote...
Now sure, with meta gaming you might go through a game making perfect choices, never losing anyone. That could be because you read about it before hand, are replaying the game or you simple reload a save after a bad choice. That's all fine, but a narrative should never be written around meta gaming. You should never write a situation involving a character death thinking, "oh, I have to write this in a certain way because someone may replay the game or otherwise know the possible outcomes of this situation. I can't make it possible to save this character, because someone may know it's possible to save this character when they reach this point". Some gamers are going to meta game and that's their right, but a lot aren't, and you have to realise that you're going to be able to craft a much deeper and more emotional story if you don't write with meta gaming in mind.
I agree with this as well. The thought that the player might reload to see what happens or go look at a guide shouldn't factor in--because if they're going to do that, they'll do it period, and finding out you can't do anything to stop it is no better than finding out you can. If they reload or check a guide
at all, it means they
already weren't engaged enough to want to see their choices through in the first place, and immersion was already broken. Taking away the possibility of a better option doesn't force them to deal with the sadness of the situation, it just reinforces their sense of alienation from the story.
With the example you mentioned, I don't think I stopped playing there because it was sad, but it felt too important to keep going. I was engaged in the story at that point. I don't exactly like the mechanic they used and wish it had been made more clear that we were making a choice in not immediately going after the crew (as well as still wanting to know where the hell Shepard and all her squadmates went in that damned shuttle while the crew was conveniently abducted), but I do like the fact that your choices there mattered. I just wish you'd been making the choice as Shepard, not just as the player. Maybe the choice to go after that Reaper ship (the one which triggers the abduction) should've been emphasized as extremely dangerous and attracting potential unwanted attention--a probable trap that you and the ship should be ready for. Then if you ignore that advice and don't do enough missions beforehand, it's your own fault. Instead, I felt a little as if the game had tricked me into getting people killed. I think it would've worked even better if I felt even more responsible for putting them at risk--like if I'd known I was going on a mission where I would take all the squadmates along and the crew would left unprotected. And then I'd, y'know, actually played that mission at all and knew what Shepard was doing and had any reason to feel bad when Joker scolded her.
All of this just emphasizes for me how important it is to let the player (a) see the bad stuff coming, and (
respond to it by doing what they want to do, what seems logical. The moment the player feels cheated out of the opportunity to be smart, or like a gameplay mistake they made rather than a real choice they considered as a leader was at fault for what happened, you've lost them.
TL:DR for this entire post--there should be as close to no
Gameplay and Story Segregation as is possible.
Modifié par Wynne, 10 décembre 2012 - 03:10 .
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<_< when I saw that. That Hawke´s actions had so little impact could be the very reason so many think of him as a loser. DA2 works great as a deconstruction of the "figurehead" of big events, but I really doubt that was the aim of the game. If actions end all in exactly the same place with the same outcome, then we are being railroaded. No choice, no illusion of choice. Fine if we only play through once, but for some of us who like multiple playthroughs it lowers the game.
