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[batlin]

First, the idea that DA2 is a personal story is pretty head-scratching. In a personal story you learn about the lead character's life, get insight into why the character is the way he/she is, and that character has an arc. In other words, the character is a fundamentally different person at the end of the story than they are at the beginning. A Christmas Carol is a personal story. Planescape: Torment is a personal story. Dragon Age 2 is most certainly not a personal story. Hawke is not a different person at the end of the game than he/she is at the beginning. Hawke's demeanor does not change after things happen to his family members outside of a couple dialogue options that have no real effect on the narrative. We learn nothing about Hawke's past beyond how his parents fled to Ferelden to escape the Templars and grew up in Lothering. Hawke by design is a blank slate for you to mold into either a diplomatic, "funny", or aggressive person so they obviously could not construct a backstory that alludes to Hawke having a specific personality or else the character would be incongruent. DA2 is no more personal a story for Hawke than DA:O was for the Warden.

Second, the praise it gets for party members having "lives that don't revolve around the main character". This is especially confusing because as far as I can tell, your party just kind of remain in stasis in their dwellings whenever Hawke isn't around. Sure, Varric says he's tracking down Bartrand, and yes, Aveline gets a job in the guard, but the majority of the party just seems to hang out in one area for years on end without accomplishing anything important until Hawke shows up and activates their subplot. What exactly does Fenris do when he's not sitting in that dark mansion? What does Merrill do when she's not studying the Eluvian or getting furniture for her shack? Does Isabela have a job at the tavern she's always in, or does she just hit on drunk dudes all day every day? My point is that the idea the companions actually have lives beyond Hawke's purview is not beleivable whatsoever, because we see almost no evidence that they do. Even their romantic interests are suspended until Hawke decides to follow up on their encounters three years after the fact. In essence, giving each character their own dwelling only makes for a less convenient campsite that we had in DA:O, only your friends will only talk to you when your map allows them to.

Can anyone justify these praises? Because I'm stumped.

Modifié par batlin, 17 janvier 2013 - 11:04 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Plaintiff wrote...

In breaking news, Batlin has more complaints about DA2. This is a great shock to nobody.

At the same time, comments like these don't do much to improve the atmosphere either.

If one feels that Batlin is somewhat predictable in his postings, I hope I can assure you that a lack of protestations won't result in your perspectives being lost on the dev team, nor Batlin's being overrepresented.


It's appreciated.  Cheers!

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 18 janvier 2013 - 08:50 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Wulfram wrote...

I really don't see much of a personal story. Just a lack of any sort of real main plot. If the player creates for themselves a personal story, then that absence maybe gives it more prominence, but I don't think the game does anything particularly to encourage the creation of such a personal story.

I do think the companions have more of a life outside of the PC. Actually, I sometimes felt a bit left out - how come Fenris goes around having card games with everyone else, but Hawke just gets "Mages are bad, slaves are bad" all the time?

When I think of personal story, I think more that the focus is more on Hawke specifically, and his/her family, rather than more external forces at play.

That's not to say that external forces aren't at play, but I saw it more as Hawke becoming involved with things because of Hawke being Hawke, and the circumstances around the Hawke family.  Whether or not you think we did it well is one thing, but I agree that that is more of an execution problem.

I don't see DAO as being so much of a personal story.  Though a game like Planescape: Torment certainly is.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think the framed narrative approach could have been done really well with an RPG, but ultimately wasn't delivered quite as well as it could have been for DA2.

Some of the aspects of framed narrative, such as immediately seeing the consequences of your actions (but timeline wise, it takes SOME time for the repercussions to occur, so it'd still be a few years or whatever), could have been done quite well. From a humor standpoint, we could have done more stuff like Bertrand's manor (though too much and it starts to get old). We actually did have more "fake" scenes, but there was a bit of a pacing issue, and felt it was making the crit path come across as a bit inconsistent, where it bounces between campy and serious, while making Varric's interactions with Cassandra a bit less interesting and consistent (I bet Bertrand's survived because it was pretty well done IMO haha).

I don't think one is better than the other, it's just in how it gets used. It's more a reflection of the aggressive plan reducing iteration time, in my opinion.