370 réponses à ce sujet

[Addai]

LinksOcarina wrote...
And as a sidebar I am going on record right now for saying Witcher 3 will not be that successful if they go down the route they want to, which lets face it, is essentially emulating Skyrim as much as possible while adhering to a fixed narrative, which is something that doesn't work so well most of the time. 

Oh, this is ironic.  All you ever hear around here when Skyrim is brought up is how it would be so much better with a Bioware-style narrative.

I also think you're stretching a bit to say they're "emulating Skyrim as much as possible."  They're also designing Cyberpunk with an open world format, is that emulating Skyrim too?

Never mind, as a fan of open world, I'm just going to bask in this day. 

[CronoDragoon]

Mr Fixit wrote...
Yeah, I'm not a fan of imposing modern morality myself. My own moral compass points to the magnetic pole of my very own, thank you very much. I'm not going to lose it when faced with some good ole debauchery and decadence to wallow in.

I'm not asking anyone to stand up and give a treatise on human rights. The concept of rights obviously did not exist in dark age-era society. But to me a story is worse off if it fails to challenge the logic of that era's beliefs, either by what happens to characters or having one character to at least give voice to concerns.

[LinksOcarina]

Addai67 wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...
And as a sidebar I am going on record right now for saying Witcher 3 will not be that successful if they go down the route they want to, which lets face it, is essentially emulating Skyrim as much as possible while adhering to a fixed narrative, which is something that doesn't work so well most of the time. 

Oh, this is ironic.  All you ever hear around here when Skyrim is brought up is how it would be so much better with a Bioware-style narrative.

I also think you're stretching a bit to say they're "emulating Skyrim as much as possible."  They're also designing Cyberpunk with an open world format, is that emulating Skyrim too?

Never mind, as a fan of open world, I'm just going to bask in this day. 

Yeah, it is. Because that is the current gestalt that most of the gaming community would shape when comparing the two. It's like how Far Cry 3 had the "false" advertising of being "Skyrim with guns." So it may be a stretch, but the comparisons will be there, and will be remarked on by everyone. 

As for the irony of the statement, I made a realizition a while back regarding Skyrim and Dragon Age, they are two distinct RPGs in terms of mechanical design; one is about narrative and experience coheson with a combat element, the other is about power-fantasy with combat cohesion, and bare narrative. I may complain that Skyrim lacks a good narrative, but I realize that thats not the point of the game, and I made peace with that when I do pop it in every so often. Same with the reason why we don't get to explore in Dragon Age, because that is not the point of the series, since the plot/narrative is the primary focus.

So if CD Project Red can combine them and make it work, good for them. I just don't see it happening because most attempts are either lackluster in executon or just downright distracting while playing the game. Who knows I might be wrong, but hey, thats why it's a prediction. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 05 février 2013 - 09:36 .

[Nerevar-as]

As long as we don´t get the "wasn´t I supposed to be doing something?" feeling I got playing Bethesda games (even Morrowind feels like this at times), everything should be OK. I guess there´ll be hub areas where we meet characters and quests, and wilderness for exploring and witchering around. I see the problem lying more in having both balanced than being incompatible. The AC games I´ve played combine rather big cities (Venetia in 2 was bigger than all DA2) with considerable plot. Should still work on a bigger scale.

[Addai]

CronoDragoon wrote...

I'm not asking anyone to stand up and give a treatise on human rights. The concept of rights obviously did not exist in dark age-era society. But to me a story is worse off if it fails to challenge the logic of that era's beliefs, either by what happens to characters or having one character to at least give voice to concerns.

You're suggesting that no one in the Northern Kingdoms questions racism or other isms?    Geralt is a mutant.  The Scoia'tael are fighting against oppression of non-human races.  An entire running theme of the games is questioning the morality of the powers that be.

[billy the squid]

CronoDragoon wrote...

billy the squid wrote...
The two aren't mutually exclusive, but the amount of attention that it recieves is daft. It's very much akin to making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I'd have no idea since I haven't really posted on any message boards about the Witcher. It's not a game-breaker but I imagine it receives so much attention because of how obvious it is.

I think the strength of GoT is that the characters are humanized, they are relatable, despite their actions. For instance I don't think that Tywin Lannister, Jamie, Cersi, Theon, Stannis are written through a modern moral lense. I think they represent the human attributes that everyone posesses, thus the internal conflict in some charcters and changes in stance according to their positions within the War of 5 kings and westeros, which is undoubtedly a patriarchal society, only the women in power have any influence, but they wield it with authority and are utterly ruthless.

CronoDragoon wrote...

Those characters may be humanized, but you'll also notice that Martin has set them all up as the villains. Now, Martin may be very good at humanizing his villains, but it sounds to me like you want to claim that villains and heroes are indistiguishable in Game of Thrones. I don't agree. Examining what all the protagonists in GoT have in common (Jon, Tyrion, Danaerys) yields modern liberal views. They are still "the good guys." The best case you could make against Tyrion was that he was born into a family name that he honored despite how he was treated, but even that has been overcome as early as the end of SoS.

It is obvious, but everytime it's brought up it's treated as the epitome of objectification and sexism, I mean really, I didn't realise a game was the forefront of the "battle" for gender equality. That is the issue, proporitionality. 

I don't think Martin ever set them up as villains, I'm fairly sure that Martin doesn't intentionally set up many of his characters as villains, as soon as that starts happening then the story starts to devolve into he's bad, he's good mentality. Heroes and villains are determined by a shade of grey, not the dichotomy of good and evil. 

Of each particular thing ask what is it in itself, what does the character want, what do they need and desire, what are their fears. 

Tywin, the prestige of House Lannister. To establish a dynasty that will last for a thousand years. Look at his life, his history, his actions. Much of his reasoning revolves around that single point. Everything stems from there, his treatment of Tyrion, his blind eye to Cersi and Jamie's incestious relationship, the Red wedding, even his toleration of Joffrey. Although even he says he needs a sharp lesson. Hand of the king for 20 years of prosperity under the Mad King wherehe effectively rulled the kingdom. More than 20 years of peace for the small folk of the lands.  

Sound like a villain or someone calculating and ruthless enough to ensure their dominance and by implication the prosperity of the kingdoms. 

Ned Stark, the typical "moral right" creates a situation where it leads to the War of the 5 kings where thousands die. Because it was the "right" thing to do. A better man like Tywin Lannister may have manuvered and removed the threat quietly through an action like the Red wedding. The noble man in Ned didn't, and he lost his head and plunged the Kingdom's into a civil war.

Stannis Baratheon. A truly just man. And utterly terrifying. 

None of the protagonists you've mentioned are in any real position of power until much later in the books and none have had to face an open conflict where hard decisions have been made. The exception being Tyrion, what did he do in the siege of King's Landing, the actions he takes to secure the city. Undercutting Janos Slynt, drugging his sister to prevent her interfering, wh0ring, muder of his father and Shae etc. He doesn't have the power and command of his father nor the prowess of his brother. He's not exactly morally virtuous. 

Jon Snow has sworn to the Night's watch and there is a far more clear divide between his actions with the wilding invasion and the coming Others, it's easier to term him as a protaginist. 

Whilst Daynaers, freeing the slave soldiers? Read the words of Marcus Aurelius once again. What does she want? Her throne, her means is to gather an army. you can try and place a liberal spin to it, but it's not really when she buys them, betrays the slave traders and then kills them, using the soldiers to propel herself to power in the East. It's not moral virtue it's shades of grey.

Modifié par billy the squid, 05 février 2013 - 10:27 .

[billy the squid]

Addai67 wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

I'm not asking anyone to stand up and give a treatise on human rights. The concept of rights obviously did not exist in dark age-era society. But to me a story is worse off if it fails to challenge the logic of that era's beliefs, either by what happens to characters or having one character to at least give voice to concerns.

You're suggesting that no one in the Northern Kingdoms questions racism or other isms?    Geralt is a mutant.  The Scoia'tael are fighting against oppression of non-human races.  An entire running theme of the games is questioning the morality of the powers that be.

I think the key point is it's done well and not rubbed in your face every 5 minutes, with this chap is clearly bad. This one is clearly good. Like the Scoia'teal attacking civillian villages allying with Nilfgaard etc. For Iorveth the end justifies the means. That's what I enjoy.

I dislike a protagonist or character passing judgment with a holier than thou art attitude, regardless of the practicalities of implementing it. Which is where I think DA falls down badly, coming off as simplistic. TW2 manages this, everytime the player shifts position or sides with one option, but it's not as simple as A vs B, with one side often as bad as the other. The same with A song of Ice and Fire.

Modifié par billy the squid, 05 février 2013 - 10:40 .

[Giantdeathrobot]

Hmm, A Song of Ice and Fire definitely has villains. People like The Mountain, Vargo Hoat or Ramsey Bolton who make others suffer for no other reason that they can and/or enjoy it. They don't get the treatment that, say, Tywin gets, that is being utterly ruthless but not painted as really evil at all; it's left to the reader, I consider him evil for what he does to Tyrion but others might very well disagree. But the aforementionned Mountain & co don't even get that. They are never depicted doing anything else than monstruous acts for **** and giggles, which is evil regardless of the epoch you live in. It also has heroe in the person of characters obviously meant to be sympathetic, if not flawlessly heroic. Jon Snow, most of the Starks, Dany, Tyrion, Davos, Jaime post you-know-what fit the mold. He plays with the concept of hero to be sure, but they still are characters that the reader is supposed to rout for to a degree. And IMO there needs to be, otherwise the reader just gets detached from the story. Who wants to read about a world where absolutely everyone is an unrepentent, murderous psychopath busily slaughtering each other? Unless you're a 40K fan I guess. And see how even 40k litterature is usually less dark than the source material (look at the Ciaphas Cain or Gaunt's Ghosts novels).

Same for The Witcher. There are many, many morally gray characters, but some are still more or less plainly evil with no real qualities to them, like Dethmold, and some clearly heroic characters, namely Geralt and his entourage. Doesn't mean they are paragons of pureness, but they're heroes still.

As for Dragon Age, I don't get that complaint. For Origins at least, you can be one hell of a callous bastard, and I don't recall dialogue options forcing you to cast judgement or be holier than thou. Other NPCs might, but that's to be expected given how much of an **** the PC can be at times. All in the name of stopping the Blight, of course.

[Nerevar-as]

billy the squid wrote...


Sound like a villain or someone calculating and ruthless enough to ensure their dominance and by implication the prosperity of the kingdoms. 

You´ve just described about every tyrant in history. What do you think evil is? Everybody is his/her own tale hero. Being evil is not about growing a goatee, laughing maniacally, wearing black and red, and so on. It´s (IMO) about stepping over others to get your goals, lacking empathy for them, and only caring about what´s yours. And Tywin fits perfectly. The kingdom can burn as long as the Lannisters end on top of the pile of ashes.

[Raging_Pulse]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Saying one group has no history of false advertising for products and being open to their fans as a reason to trust them more is also being naive. And once again a double standard, since you can argue that the BioWare team did just that numerous times regarding the development of both Dragon Age II and Mass Effect 3. The video streams, updates, features of development, and so forth. Is that not a double standard when it comes to openess to fans regarding the production of a game?  

Your degree of openess is in the eye of the beholder, but glorifying one over the other is being disengenuous when they do the same thing. If you don't like how they do it, thats a different story, but don't make it sound like one is completely under wraps while the other shares every little detail. 

You seem to be quick to jump to some strange conclusions.

I said that as far as I know CDPR doesn't have a history in false advertising (and I never said that Bioware has one), so I personally have no reason to believe they'll screw up so badly to justify them being burned at a stake even if they don't deliver, which was what you suggested. You can judge that to be a naive but, well I don't care.

Nor did I ever said BioWare "keeps everything under wraps and CDPR shares everything" *sigh*

In my experience, CDPR just tends to be more informal, direct and open both at the announcement and during development of the game.  You are the one who's speaking in absolutes.

This was how DA3 was announced:

* The next game will be called Dragon Age III: Inquisition.
* We won't be talking about the story of the game today. Though you can make some guesses from the title.
* This game is being made by a lot of the same team that has been working on Dragon Age since Dragon Age: Origins. It's composed of * both experienced BioWare veterans and talented new developers.
* We are working on a new engine which we believe will allow us to deliver a more expansive world, better visuals, more reactivity to player choices, and more customization. At PAX East, we talked about armor and followers… Yeah, that kind of customization. We've started with Frostbite 2 from DICE as a foundation to accomplish this.

And this is from today's W3 announcement:

- The team felt it missed the huge freedom of open-world games like Skyrim
- Proper mounted combat still being tested
- Currently not a definite part of the game
- Horses will be in, though, since they’re important for navigation
- Ships float on the water in true physics interactions
- Team has doubled in size
- No chapters, acts, or any artificial break-points
- Geralt can seamlessly cross from one end of the world to the other thanks to REDengine 3
- No loading screens while traveling in the open world
- Can explore on foot, by horseback, and via boat
- Pursue yor long-lost love, play the game of empires on behalf of the northern kingdoms that still claim independence, and thwart the nefarious Wild Hunt
- Fast travel: instantly revisit any discovered location
- Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz: “A huge goal is to keep the high quality o four quests, with all the cinematics and impressive events and moments.”
- Point of interest will always be in sight
- Players will be beckoned to explore dank caves, embattled villages, decaying ruins, etc.
- Over 100 hours of hand-scripted quests
- Quests: help villagers, engineer the succession of the Skellige kings, etc.
- Use monster hunting for adventure, incoming, and unique rewards
- There are mini-games based on the area of the world
- Ex: Skellige has knife-throwing
- Gain exclusive rewards from mini-games
- Don’t have to complete mini-games to proceed in the story
- Monsters, bandits, traders, animals, and more will attack anyone they deem hostile
- Enemies don’t scale to the player’s level
- Slaying monsters, fighting hostile humans in the different forms they come in, collecting items, leveling up are in the game
- World 40 times larger than the last game
- Three different aspects to narration
- Lowest level: free-form activities like monster hunting, crafting, individual standalone quests
- Second step: political situation and Nilfgaardian invasion is resolved through the core plotline of the major areas (Skellige, Novigrad, No Man’s Land)
- Each land has its own storyline
- Can abandon the storyline, but will have repercussions later
- Not doing a plotline is a choice the player has
- Main narrative: search for Geralt’s loved ones and conflict with the Wild Hunt
- Multiple branches of narratives that feed into each other
- Don’t have to do anything outside the main storyline to beat the game
- Could have help in a main-line encounter from an ally you gained in the Skellige archipelago if you’ve completed certain quests in certain ways
- Major events in the main storyline are “gates” for the state of the world
- Ex: village threatened by bandits might be abandoned after certain events if the player doesn’t help
- Weather effects are dynamically generated and fully modeled as real volumetric clouds rather than being simply painted on the skybox
- In contrast to the last game, Geralt encounters communities and individuals with monster-related problems that need solving
- There aren’t contract-like assignments this time
- Press the left trigger to turn on Geralt’s witcher senses
- Can glean information from a crime scene upon discovering it
- Within range of a scene of interest, the mechanic conveys clues to the player through the witcher muttering to himself and/or visual depictions of past events that represent Geralt’s reasoning
- Time of day and other conditions determine where monsters appear and their abilities
- Can strike critical areas in combat based on how much you learn about monster anatomy and tactics
- The team is deciding between using a handful of in-combat special moves for particular attacks and a slow-motion quick-time event style
- Monsters you defeat leave otherwise unobtainable alchemical and crafting ingredients needed for making of unique items, potions, mutagens
- These allow Geralt to gain special powers and upgrades in the new mutation development tree
- These kills serve as the witcher’s primary method of income
- Moving more toward romance and away from shallow sexual encounters
- “We want to treat it maturely like we did in The Witcher 2. We are not bringing sex cards back.”
- Witcher 3 doesn’t have completely different environments based on singular choices due to the open world, but there are similarly impactful decisions
- You’ll be involved with mutually exclusive storylines and situations based on certain momentous choices
- Won’t be on the same level as Witcher 2, however
- Game mechanics based on previous games, but the team is revisiting many details
- Backward difficulty curve being addressed
- Reworking the flow of combat
- 96 animations for Geralt’s combat moves (last game had 20)
- Game has a “weighting” system for the camera to help keep the biggest threats in frame at all times
- Combat system: three big changes to solve the problem of being locked into long animations
- Every button press mapped to a single strike
- Each move takes a roughly equivalent time to perform
- Can always interrupt your current action to immediately dodge or block
- Can block/dodge when out of stamina, but you’ll be staggered
- Team wants to make the combat “more intimate”
- “You don’t run – in the Witcher 2 you were running constantly. You walk, but your attacks are very fast. Your opponents also walk but they have charges and things like that.”
- Geralt’s dodge roll replaced by a pivot move
- It retains its defensive utility without game-breaking mobility
- Attacks faster than in The Witcher 2
- Enemy AI completely rebuilt
- No scripted boss encounters
- One boss: ice giant
- Roughly a dozen types of interactive objects
- Ex: Can irritate a wasp with the telekinetic Aard sign to make a damaging distraction for his foes and disperse the swarm with the fiery Igni sign once the wasp swarm becomes a problem
- Magical signs are retooled
- Each of the five signs has a basic form such as Igni’s new flamethrower effect
- If the player advances down the magic tree as Geralt levels up, can unlock a second form of the sign
- For Igni, would unlock a 360-degree blast that immolates anything close
- Yrdren’s small trap can be changed into a bigger field that slows enemies
- Player retains the use of the basic form
- Other two trees are based on swordsmanship and alchemy
- Swordfighting: can unlock new strikes and boosts such as improved stamina and parrying
- Alchemy: mutation mechanic moved off to a separate development path, independent of the level-up process
- Alchemy specialization is based more on potions
- Improvements available for the horse and boat
- These aspects are still in development
- One idea: players could access their long-term storage stash from their horse as well as from inns
- Team knows about frustrating inventory management in Witcher 2
- Crafting still important for enhancing Geralt’s capabilities
- Can customize crafted items
- Some components are can be substituted for similar things
- Ex: monster scales instead of leather in a piece of armor
- This affects the properties of the final item
- Can find unique components as part of monster hunts or questlines
- Combine these with special recipes to make artifacts of immense power
- Each armor piece has a unique appearance
- Armor has improved presentation and new cloth simulation
- Can visit a barber to change Geralt’s hairstyle

coupled with several concept art pics, a screenshot and a developer video interview.

I just suggested that I'd like DA3 team to be more straightforward like that, even if release date is still nowhere near in sight. Sorry for being excited about the upcoming game of the franchise I love.

Modifié par Domecoming, 05 février 2013 - 10:43 .

[LinksOcarina]

Domecoming wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Saying one group has no history of false advertising for products and being open to their fans as a reason to trust them more is also being naive. And once again a double standard, since you can argue that the BioWare team did just that numerous times regarding the development of both Dragon Age II and Mass Effect 3. The video streams, updates, features of development, and so forth. Is that not a double standard when it comes to openess to fans regarding the production of a game?  

Your degree of openess is in the eye of the beholder, but glorifying one over the other is being disengenuous when they do the same thing. If you don't like how they do it, thats a different story, but don't make it sound like one is completely under wraps while the other shares every little detail. 

You seem to be quick to jump to some strange conclusions.

*snip*

Just pointing out the fallacy of the argument, and the belief that one is trustworthy over another because of their decorum, nothing more. Be excited all you want, I won't take that away, and sorry if it seemed like I was. 

[billy the squid]

Giantdeathrobot wrote...

Hmm, A Song of Ice and Fire definitely has villains. People like The Mountain, Vargo Hoat or Ramsey Bolton who make others suffer for no other reason that they can and/or enjoy it. They don't get the treatment that, say, Tywin gets, that is being utterly ruthless but not painted as really evil at all; it's left to the reader, I consider him evil for what he does to Tyrion but others might very well disagree.

But the aforementionned Mountain & co don't even get that. They are never depicted doing anything else than monstruous acts for **** and giggles, which is evil regardless of the epoch you live in. It also has heroe in the person of characters obviously meant to be sympathetic, if not flawlessly heroic.

Jon Snow, most of the Starks, Dany, Tyrion, Davos, Jaime post you-know-what fit the mold. He plays with the concept of hero to be sure, but they still are characters that the reader is supposed to rout for to a degree. And IMO there needs to be, otherwise the reader just gets detached from the story. Who wants to read about a world where absolutely everyone is an unrepentent, murderous psychopath busily slaughtering each other? Unless you're a 40K fan I guess. And see how even 40k litterature is usually less dark than the source material (look at the Ciaphas Cain or Gaunt's Ghosts novels).

Same for The Witcher. There are many, many morally gray characters, but some are still more or less plainly evil with no real qualities to them, like Dethmold, and some clearly heroic characters, namely Geralt and his entourage. Doesn't mean they are paragons of pureness, but they're heroes still.

As for Dragon Age, I don't get that complaint. For Origins at least, you can be one hell of a callous bastard, and I don't recall dialogue options forcing you to cast judgement or be holier than thou. Other NPCs might, but that's to be expected given how much of an **** the PC can be at times. All in the name of stopping the Blight, of course.

There are the typical characters which are truely loathasome. But, as you said they are fairly minor. The world of The Witcher is largely grey. It's failrly uncommon to find a character who is liberal and actually follows though with his reasoning. Iorveth is a good example. Terrorist or Freedom fighter? 

And murderous villains with no redeming qualities are as bad as characters with a holier than thou attitude or complainig when you choose an action which is less than "good" all the time. Both tend to be rather boring in the long run.

The same with Game of Thrones, some characters are obviously less a "hero" than others and certainly Dani and Snow in their youth and in their POVs go through some of the internal conflict  when trying to reconcile their actions with the necessities they face. Dani's rise to power in the East is a good example. My preference is a grey area an murky issues of morality and how the various characters reconcile themselves to the actions that they take and the reasoning behind it. Each one is different due to the characterisation differences. It needent be constantly be brought up that this is seen as bad through a lense of modern morality.

It's less so with DAO, more so with DA2. the rivalry friendship system pushes you towards a forced decision, rather than letting you move towards what you think is right. The need to gain points with a character shifts perspective. I don't think that's a good thing. ie: Fenris, make decisions vs mages.

Modifié par billy the squid, 05 février 2013 - 11:24 .

[The Elder King]

So CDP practically announced the next-gen consoles, since they said that TW3 will be released simulaneously on both PC and high-end platforms in 2014.
I really hope that DA3 will be released on 2013, or at least with some months before TW3. I don't want both of them to lose a part of sales due to a near release.

[Sidney]

The Witcher offered

1. Only human protagonist
2. Fixed background
3. Cool Assasin's Creed style action combat system
4. Assasin's Creed style action combat system that only needed one playstyle
5. One LI
6. Linear story with one (major) branch based on one conversation

Wait, hold on people here who whine about all these things liked this game?

I really did like the fact that this was Geralt's story. It allowed them to tell a much better story, a deeper more personal tale than the very generic DAO or Skyrim plot. It was what DA2 should have been honestly. Hated the combat which was what people seem to think the DA2 combat was but actually wasn't.

[billy the squid]

Nerevar-as wrote...

billy the squid wrote...


Sound like a villain or someone calculating and ruthless enough to ensure their dominance and by implication the prosperity of the kingdoms. 

You´ve just described about every tyrant in history. What do you think evil is? Everybody is his/her own tale hero. Being evil is not about growing a goatee, laughing maniacally, wearing black and red, and so on. It´s (IMO) about stepping over others to get your goals, lacking empathy for them, and only caring about what´s yours. And Tywin fits perfectly. The kingdom can burn as long as the Lannisters end on top of the pile of ashes.

You really need to read the books and watch the Tv Series to get a better understanding of Tywin Lannister. If you haven't then my explaination is not going to be sufficient for you to understand the charcter of the man.

This is also what I mean about characters and settings being grey in outlook. And the enforced position of he is bad and he is good, which can derive from simplistic characterisation.

eg: Roache in comparison to Iorveth or Henselt's dominance of the North vs the coming Nilfgaardian invasion. Neither decision is clear cut, and both sides have commited acts which are murderous, it really does revolve around the player's own concepts of morality and how they place themselves on the spectrum of what they see as right and wrong, in that context at that time.

Modifié par billy the squid, 05 février 2013 - 11:20 .

[Addai]

Sidney wrote...
Wait, hold on people here who whine about all these things liked this game?

I really did like the fact that this was Geralt's story. It allowed them to tell a much better story, a deeper more personal tale than the very generic DAO or Skyrim plot. It was what DA2 should have been honestly. Hated the combat which was what people seem to think the DA2 combat was but actually wasn't.

TW2 did present a cinematic game at its best.  That's why I've argued that if Bioware continues on this path, they should go ahead and make the PC a fixed character.  That does fix a lot of problems I have with cinematic games, if it's executed well and with at least a strong illusion of story agency.  But Geralt is also just a good character.

I disliked TW2 combat a lot, so not going to argue on that one.  It's for similar reasons that I disliked DA2's- awkward PC controls and a herky-jerky, over-the-top aesthetic.  TW2 combat animations were still better, maybe because they used motion capture, I dunno.

Modifié par Addai67, 05 février 2013 - 11:18 .

[Raging_Pulse]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Just pointing out the fallacy of the argument, and the belief that one is trustworthy over another because of their decorum, nothing more. Be excited all you want, I won't take that away, and sorry if it seemed like I was. 

No it's cool, it's just that you imagined the fallacy and argued it with yourself. Because I'm looking back at the thread to see who brought the issue of BW and CDPR competing for trust in the first place and I can't find anyone except you.

[LinksOcarina]

Domecoming wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Just pointing out the fallacy of the argument, and the belief that one is trustworthy over another because of their decorum, nothing more. Be excited all you want, I won't take that away, and sorry if it seemed like I was. 

No it's cool, it's just that you imagined the fallacy and argued it with yourself. Because I'm looking back at the thread to see who brought the issue of BW and CDPR competing for trust in the first place and I can't find anyone except you.

I probably did do that...I tend to argue with myself a lot in these forums.

[CronoDragoon]

Game of Thrones spoilers!

billy the squid wrote...

I don't think Martin ever set them up as villains, I'm fairly sure that Martin doesn't intentionally set up many of his characters as villains, as soon as that starts happening then the story starts to devolve into he's bad, he's good mentality. Heroes and villains are determined by a shade of grey, not the dichotomy of good and evil. 

By villains I do not mean evil but rather the antagonists of the story. If Martin truly wanted shades of grey, he would not so consistently associate the protagonists with honorable sentiments. Jon Snow had to decide between saving wildings and abandoning them to save possible deaths from the men of the Night's Watch. He chose what the modern, liberal reader would agree with. It seems we agree Jon is the more typical hero type though.

Dany killed slavers, which is hardly morally grey. When her dragons ate a kid or two, she had a moral breakdown and spent the next book floundering about in existential grief. Ultimately she sacrificed her happiness to marry a man she didn't care about and for all intents and purposes seemed committed to remaining in Mereen, feeling responsible for the people there and taking responsibility for what she had brought upon its people. Such sentiments don't enter the mind of the Lannisters, and although it is incorrect to say that Tywin Lannister only cares about himself, it is certainly true that he's willing to let the land burn to ensure the stability of his family's position. Thoughts about saving lives seem incidental to Tywin's thinking if you ask me; everything is in service to the family name.

Tyrion is of course the most interesting hero to consider, but what exactly has he done that is morally questionable? Has he killed any innocents? In his process of consolidating power as the Hand, what did he do that was truly disturbing to the modern reader? Does sending Janos Slynt to the Night's Watch constitute a moral breach of contract? Arguably the only act would be strangling Shae.

But in any case now we're talking too much SoIaF in a thread meant to be about the Witcher and Dragon Age. I'd like to continue in PMs but I think I've hijacked enough of this thread for now.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 05 février 2013 - 11:44 .

[CronoDragoon]

Addai67 wrote...
You're suggesting that no one in the Northern Kingdoms questions racism or other isms?    Geralt is a mutant.  The Scoia'tael are fighting against oppression of non-human races.  An entire running theme of the games is questioning the morality of the powers that be.

No, I think TW2 does pretty well with race conflict, which is a good thing because it seems to be the thematic center of a lot of what happens. Sexism I think the first game struggles with, and the second game is still roped into gratuitous and out-of-place sex scenes to appeal to teen gamers, but at the least I can identify characters such as Saskia and Philippa who are strong, independent women whose character arcs are independent of Geralt and/or his opinion of them.

[Allan Schumacher]

This thread has long evolved passed a discussion about The Witcher games and Dragon Age.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 06 février 2013 - 12:09 .