370 réponses à ce sujet

[billy the squid]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Jayne126 wrote...

The Choice and Consequence department.

And TW doesn't need to include "other" perspectives. It's about Geralt, who isn't "your" Character.

Oh yeah, and a Barber.

Well, Geralt is just like Shepard, or Hawke or Lee Everett in many ways where he is a hybrid character that you control, but only insomuch as the narrative. The plot is fixed, some aspects of the character are fixed, but we can shape the narrative in a number of ways through that.

Thats the dichtomoy that people I feel never really look into because there is a distinction between the two, between the plot and the narrative and ergo the choices and consequences. 

For example, you think the Witcher 2 is full of choices and consequences? Truth be told its mostly railroaded to specific choices (Roache or Iorveth, anything with Triss) that essentially designed to be major plot points for you to follow. True, choosing them changes aspects of the narrative, but the overall plot in the end is, for all intents and purposes, essentially the same.

Shepard and Hawke had this too. Their objectives were always set in stone, the tone of those objectives are changed though. Siding with mages or templars is unchangable, but thats part of the plot, you need to side with one. Who you side with, however, is part of the narrative. Same with how you deal with Anders, or Fenryiel, or your companions, or the Arishock.  Who, what, and how you resolve those changes, even if its a plot-fixed event.

That is kind of the point in the end of the choices and consequences, its illusionary in its design by design, because its following a fixed plot like Final Fantasy, with more choice in it. 

That is a gross over generalisation. Unless you're under the impression that the plot consititutes Geralt finding who was responsible for the Assination of Kings, which frankly you find that out by the end of act 1 in Flotsam. Which if you are making that assumption, in Mass effect the plot is Shepard defeats reapers. As such it's clearly not the entire premise of the plot, even Mass effect and DA2 is somewhat more branching than that.

And TW my decissions in the prologue can come back and bite me in the arse. Did you kill Arian Lavalette by chance? Perhaps help his mother, the Baroness? Side with Iorveth yet turn against Prince Stennis in favour of Saskia? Immediatly run to save Triss or hold back, let Roache kill Henselt? What of your dealings with Radovid? Have you adied the lodge? did you kill Saskia, did you free her. Have you placed the lodge in a position ofauthority vs the Nilfgaardian invasion? Have your actions created infighting in the North to such an extent that the Emperor's victory seems assured. Did your action create the possibility of safeguarding Upper Aidern for the elves? Did you kill or let Letho live?

Your outcome at the end of the Witcher in terms of plot and narrative is vastly different in several casses and I believe there are 16 different possible combinations ranging from major plot differences to more minor ones. I think KoP has drawn up a digram of the various combinations, political factions and back stabbing, more thoroughly than my list, which is off the top of my head.

Bit different form Side with Mages vs Templars or vice versa and  Kill Arch mage, kill Meredith, end scene. Isn't it.

[El Mito]

How to be a good game again.

[zsom]

I think the only lesson to be learned is that there is not recipe for a good game. TW2 is full of "flaws", compared to TW1, it did exactly the same things "wrong" as DAII, yet it somehow got a fanbase together that played the hell out of it and is by every definition of the word fanatically in love with it.
And while the DAII forums after launch were full of angry players cursing the devs and the game, anyone who tried to voice the most modest complaint against TW2 was immediately and viciously attacked by the fans on the CDPR forum.
Whatever type of game you make, full of real choices, or only pseudo-choices without onscreen consequences, if the undefinable atmosphere is there, then the customers will love it.

[Zoe]

Xilizhra wrote...

This is going to be painful, rest assured.

Personally, I'd rather say what CDProjkect could learn from Dragon Age, such as "let us make our own characters" and "there are perspectives that exist aside from the straight male one."

This!

Allan Schumacher wrote...

It is more work, yes. In order to do it, we'd likely have to sacrifice some
depth for breadth.

I guess imagine if there was 30-40 hours of unique content, but we ended up delivering with a branch that basically has 2 mostly unique 15-20 hours branches.

It'd make the game shorter which does have some consequences: For those that feel a story needs the length in order to properly flesh things out, this is still a negative. For those that feel our games are too long, this may be a positive. For those that want total value of the game and typically replay it, there's still 30-40 hours of fresh gameplay. Those that don't typically replay but still typically finish, however, will have less content.

For me having 15 hours would be too little. If you had a longer game, for example one with 60 hours of unique content with 40 hours in one playthrough, then that would be great. If it couldn't be that long, then for me it would be better to have reactivity that is smaller in scope and not completely different branches (maybe just some different side quests or being able to play a few of the same quests from a different perspective/side).

With DA2 as an example, there could be different side quests either helping mages or templars, depending on which side the pc picked, and there would only be one end boss fight. There could also be little comments here and there from npcs that would be different depending on who was supported. There was a little bit of this in DA2, but it was not enough to make me feel like the pc was in or supporting a group. For example when supporting the mages, a number of the quests seemed like they would make more sense if supporting the templars (and maybe the opposite was also true? I never picked the templars).

Modifié par Keriana, 02 février 2013 - 08:33 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Keriana wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

It is more work, yes. In order to do it, we'd likely have to sacrifice some
depth for breadth.

I guess imagine if there was 30-40 hours of unique content, but we ended up delivering with a branch that basically has 2 mostly unique 15-20 hours branches.

It'd make the game shorter which does have some consequences: For those that feel a story needs the length in order to properly flesh things out, this is still a negative. For those that feel our games are too long, this may be a positive. For those that want total value of the game and typically replay it, there's still 30-40 hours of fresh gameplay. Those that don't typically replay but still typically finish, however, will have less content.

For me having 15 hours would be too little. If you had a longer game, for example one with 60 hours of unique content with 40 hours in one playthrough, then that would be great. If it couldn't be that long, then for me it would be better to have reactivity that is smaller in scope and not completely different branches (maybe just some different side quests or being able to play a few of the same quests from a different perspective/side).

I think one thing to address here is that the length of the game should NOT be something put on a pedastal. If Bioware put the same amount of story, but loads and LOADS more trash mobs to fight in their games, they could easily squeeze another 5, 10, maybe even 15 hours out of their games.

But that wouldn't make the game any better. If anything, it could make it a lot more tedious.

If I had a 40 hours game that had only 2 memorable moments, versus a 20 hour game that had me going crazy five or six times, then I'd say that is worth it. 

Its like the corny adage says... "Its not how many breaths you take, but the number of moments that take you breath away." 

A game like Skyrim kept me busy for countless hours, where I was constantly exploring and dealing with lots of quest-specific content. Doing the Mage/Companions/Dark Brotherhood/Thieves Guild/Daedric and Bards College quests alone, which were all optional and side quests, could take hours upon hours. They all had great stories, numerous NPCs, locations and maps, as well as different solutions to many of the things that happen. And that's not even touching the Civil War/Dragonborn quests. 

Point being, the game is extremely long. But it is extremely enjoyable because of the quality of these threadlines, not to mention the feeling that any cave you go into could turn into a full-fledged story. 

On the other hand, Kingdoms of Amalur could be an extremely long game if you wanted it to be, with lots of locations and quests... but none of them amounted to a hill of beans. They were all as flat as they come (to me at least). Meanwhile, the Walking Dead series is rather short, but full of great moments which make you question your morals.

For my tastes, give me a great game that I can either explore the heck out of once and be completely done  and satisfied (like Skyrim) or give me a game with tons of choice, reactivity and replay value (like DA:O or TWD). If you can do both, great! If you can't, then pick one and do it well. Given Bioware's usual wheelhouse of talents, I'd say it would be better to lean towards the more reactive and choice-based game, regardless of length.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 02 février 2013 - 08:50 .

[chuckles471]

Damn, this has made me just want to play the witcher 2 again. I only completed it when it came out on pc, has anything new been added to it.

Things they could take from the witcher?

Enviroments(this is the main one).
Choices having consequences.
Having to actually prepare for fights. People hate this, but I like being punished because I stuffed up my prep.
Monsters having weaknesses that can be found out. I actully bought the books so I could find out a monsters weakness.
The "towns" feeling alive and people going about their daily business(not standing in the same place all day like root vegetables).
Crafting and items. Don't need to say much because DA2 crafting was so rubbish, it felt like an afterthought.

[FodoSatoru]

chuckles471 wrote...

Damn, this has made me just want to play the witcher 2 again. I only completed it when it came out on pc, has anything new been added to it.

Things they could take from the witcher?

Enviroments(this is the main one).
Choices having consequences.
Having to actually prepare for fights. People hate this, but I like being punished because I stuffed up my prep.
Monsters having weaknesses that can be found out. I actully bought the books so I could find out a monsters weakness.
The "towns" feeling alive and people going about their daily business(not standing in the same place all day like root vegetables).
Crafting and items. Don't need to say much because DA2 crafting was so rubbish, it felt like an afterthought.

I agree with most of the points, although it would be hard resources-wise for CD-Projekt to make another game with so many different outcomes. It is nice to behold but from game to game it will become more and more unmanagable. And games will be shorter or devs will set their official canon.

Also, another great feat of the Witcher - the game acknowledges that fat people exist. In Thedas even old farts are unbelievably muscular.

Modifié par FodoSatoru, 02 février 2013 - 09:41 .

[Zoe]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
I think one thing to address here is that the length of the game should NOT be something put on a pedastal. If Bioware put the same amount of story, but loads and LOADS more trash mobs to fight in their games, they could easily squeeze another 5, 10, maybe even 15 hours out of their games.
 

The point was that it wouldn't be the same amount of story in one playthrough, but it would be the same amount with multiple playthroughs (if you picked different choices). I wasn't asking for more trash mobs or planet scanning to make it longer. I was responding with my opinion about depth vs. breadth (whether it is worth it to move parts of the story to branching and so see less story in one playthrough but have deeper choices). For me it depends on how long a story they have for the game. However, I do like more reactivity in games, regardless of whether or not it is accomplished by adding completely different branches.

[Megakoresh]

The main thing they already can't "learn" because they are under EA.

As for just purely game design and writing? Doubt it would benefit. BioWare's strength is in characters. In Witcher 2 they were poor.

CDProject's strength is plot. In Dragin Age games it is poor.

Combining the two is extremely difficult. A plot like in Witcher 2 is nearly impossible to combine with BioWare-level character interactions because they take as much time and effort as writing the said plot. A 100% thorough playthrough has to be executed twice for you to know more than 50% of what's going on in the game. It's extremely complex. And characters in, say, Origins are, when combined, just as complex.

I doubt BioWare or anyone else can pull this off. And if anyone is going to try, I'd suggest doing it on a new IP.

[LinksOcarina]

billy the squid wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Jayne126 wrote...

The Choice and Consequence department.

And TW doesn't need to include "other" perspectives. It's about Geralt, who isn't "your" Character.

Oh yeah, and a Barber.

Well, Geralt is just like Shepard, or Hawke or Lee Everett in many ways where he is a hybrid character that you control, but only insomuch as the narrative. The plot is fixed, some aspects of the character are fixed, but we can shape the narrative in a number of ways through that.

Thats the dichtomoy that people I feel never really look into because there is a distinction between the two, between the plot and the narrative and ergo the choices and consequences. 

For example, you think the Witcher 2 is full of choices and consequences? Truth be told its mostly railroaded to specific choices (Roache or Iorveth, anything with Triss) that essentially designed to be major plot points for you to follow. True, choosing them changes aspects of the narrative, but the overall plot in the end is, for all intents and purposes, essentially the same.

Shepard and Hawke had this too. Their objectives were always set in stone, the tone of those objectives are changed though. Siding with mages or templars is unchangable, but thats part of the plot, you need to side with one. Who you side with, however, is part of the narrative. Same with how you deal with Anders, or Fenryiel, or your companions, or the Arishock.  Who, what, and how you resolve those changes, even if its a plot-fixed event.

That is kind of the point in the end of the choices and consequences, its illusionary in its design by design, because its following a fixed plot like Final Fantasy, with more choice in it. 

That is a gross over generalisation. Unless you're under the impression that the plot consititutes Geralt finding who was responsible for the Assination of Kings, which frankly you find that out by the end of act 1 in Flotsam. Which if you are making that assumption, in Mass effect the plot is Shepard defeats reapers. As such it's clearly not the entire premise of the plot, even Mass effect and DA2 is somewhat more branching than that.

And TW my decissions in the prologue can come back and bite me in the arse. Did you kill Arian Lavalette by chance? Perhaps help his mother, the Baroness? Side with Iorveth yet turn against Prince Stennis in favour of Saskia? Immediatly run to save Triss or hold back, let Roache kill Henselt? What of your dealings with Radovid? Have you adied the lodge? did you kill Saskia, did you free her. Have you placed the lodge in a position ofauthority vs the Nilfgaardian invasion? Have your actions created infighting in the North to such an extent that the Emperor's victory seems assured. Did your action create the possibility of safeguarding Upper Aidern for the elves? Did you kill or let Letho live?

Your outcome at the end of the Witcher in terms of plot and narrative is vastly different in several casses and I believe there are 16 different possible combinations ranging from major plot differences to more minor ones. I think KoP has drawn up a digram of the various combinations, political factions and back stabbing, more thoroughly than my list, which is off the top of my head.

Bit different form Side with Mages vs Templars or vice versa and  Kill Arch mage, kill Meredith, end scene. Isn't it.

Hate to break it to you, but all of the above is part of the narrative, not the plot.

A plot, is a sequence of events that happen in a story. A narrative is the story, what happens within it. So the obvious question is really easy, the plot of The Witcher 2 is fixed at not finding out who killed the king, since we knew that in the first cut-scene, but rather, stopping him from continuing. And since the entire storyline involves Geralt stopping him, yeah, that is the plot of the game and to say otherwise is being disengenuous to The Witcher 2 as a whole. 

The rest of the plot, getting to him, is what makes up the narrative of our game. So certain events will always happen. Triss will always be involved heavily in the climax, and a choice regarding her is part of her involvement and your own attachment to her. We will always pick one side over another regarding Ivoreth and Roache, which is why most of the divergence comes from Act 2 which changes based on the choice between them, whereas Act 3 is primarily fixed around Sasika and Sile. Speaking of which, both of them are  always an obstacle, and several characters will always be within your grasp to interact with, or almost non-existant to your storyline. 

But how you deal with them is changable. As you said, Do you or don't you? Does it affect the plot? Not really. Triss maybe, but dealing with the rest is just how you respond through the choices. The consequences are meaningless in the scheme of game mechanics, but meaningful in the scheme of storytelling.  This is what it has in common with Dragon Age, or The Walking Dead, or any other game that touts choice and consequence in it with a fixed narrative.
 
ETA:

One thing that did occur to me. The endings to The Witcher 2.

Well, they are also part of the narrative because they have no bearing on the current plot. However, because they may be used in conjunction with the next game, then those aspects can become the plot. It is reminiscent of Dragon Age II, where the choices made at the end of the game don't affect your choice much, but can affect how Dragon Age III plays out. 

That said, there is still one difference, Dragon Age II is in a fixed narrative a bit more because its a framed story that Varric is telling, whereas the implications of what we saw at the tail-end  of the Witcher 2 is essentially a war that is completely open ended, yet unavoidable. 

I guess you have a point there, but even if that is the case, it harkens back to Dragon Age: Origins more with the narrative epilogue spelling out what the choices did for us. they don't necessarily change the plot of the game either to be fair, they are just events presumed to happen because of our intervention, which again falls under narrative if you ask me. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 02 février 2013 - 10:40 .

[billy the squid]

Megakoresh wrote...

The main thing they already can't "learn" because they are under EA.

As for just purely game design and writing? Doubt it would benefit. BioWare's strength is in characters. In Witcher 2 they were poor.

CDProject's strength is plot. In Dragin Age games it is poor.

Combining the two is extremely difficult. A plot like in Witcher 2 is nearly impossible to combine with BioWare-level character interactions because they take as much time and effort as writing the said plot. A 100% thorough playthrough has to be executed twice for you to know more than 50% of what's going on in the game. It's extremely complex. And characters in, say, Origins are, when combined, just as complex.

I doubt BioWare or anyone else can pull this off. And if anyone is going to try, I'd suggest doing it on a new IP.

The characters in the Witcher are poor? Yeeeah no. Roache, Foltest, Iorveth, Saskia, Phillipa. Letho? All of them are well played and they deliver a markedly better performance in generating interest in the world, plot and the narrative of the of the game. 

Now if you mean character interactions in terms of romance or a seperate existance from the main plotlines ie: a sub quest for that character etc. Then yes I'd agree, romance concepts for characters in TW are virtually non existant, which I'm fine with. If you mean distinct side quests, TW are more meshed with the over arching premise of the plot and narractive giveing more depth and flavour to the characters and Acts than existing as a distinct stand alone plot which they tended to do in DAO and ME3.

Modifié par billy the squid, 02 février 2013 - 10:28 .

[WhiteKnyght]

What can dragon age learn from the Witcher?

Nudity is more realistic in sex scenes than underwear(Mass Effect 3 could learn from this too. Traynor showering in her underwear: What the hell is with that?)

They have it right in the fact that the player doesn't have to **** everybody.

[Xiomara]

The Grey Nayr wrote...

What can dragon age learn from the Witcher?

Nudity is more realistic in sex scenes than underwear(Mass Effect 3 could learn from this too. Traynor showering in her underwear: What the hell is with that?)

They have it right in the fact that the player doesn't have to **** everybody.

I'm down with nudity, but I want male nudity too. Funny how many so called "mature" games seem ridiculously coy about showing manly parts....

[DaringMoosejaw]

I'd honestly rather keep them separate. I played through the first Witcher and bought the second, but gave up near the beginning because I couldn't bring myself to care what was going on. It was just, in my opinion, so grimdark that I felt everyone was an amoral jerk and I can't even remember the characters very well because they just didn't stand out to me and Geralt has all the personality of a wooden plank with a boner. I guess it hit a lot of other people differently, I managed to slog through it in the first game but I just couldn't manage the second.

[Megakoresh]

billy the squid wrote...

Megakoresh wrote...

The main thing they already can't "learn" because they are under EA.

As for just purely game design and writing? Doubt it would benefit. BioWare's strength is in characters. In Witcher 2 they were poor.

CDProject's strength is plot. In Dragin Age games it is poor.

Combining the two is extremely difficult. A plot like in Witcher 2 is nearly impossible to combine with BioWare-level character interactions because they take as much time and effort as writing the said plot. A 100% thorough playthrough has to be executed twice for you to know more than 50% of what's going on in the game. It's extremely complex. And characters in, say, Origins are, when combined, just as complex.

I doubt BioWare or anyone else can pull this off. And if anyone is going to try, I'd suggest doing it on a new IP.

The characters in the Witcher are poor? Yeeeah no. Roache, Foltest, Iorveth, Saskia, Phillipa. Letho? All of them are well played and they deliver a markedly better performance in generating interest in the world, plot and the narrative of the of the game. 

Now if you mean character interactions in terms of romance or a seperate existance from the main plotlines ie: a sub quest for that character etc. Then yes I'd agree, romance concepts for characters in TW are virtually non existant, which I'm fine with. If you mean distinct side quests, TW are more meshed with the over arching premise of the plot and narractive giveing more depth and flavour to the characters and Acts than existing as a distinct stand alone plot which they tended to do in DAO and ME3.

I do not mean romance. I mean personality, interactions and involvement. Witcher 2 doesn't have it nealy on the level of Origins. You can go to my post here. I discuss why in detail.

Witcher 2 is my favourite game, by the way.

[Dragoonlordz]

I think the two things that I would like Bioware take take onboard and look at from TW2 for example would be the living world element and like others have said the plot branching.

This is not to say Bioware should create potentially two complete different stories within the same game and have each provide different quests, characters, locations like TW2 but merely even meeting half way in making the choices in the DA franchise more impactive within the story not as much reliance on divergence at the end.

To me Witcher felt like they had a more linear beginning to the game which branched off into vastly more diverse middle part then converged back down slightly near the end relating to outcomes. DA titles to me "feel" more like they have greater difference at the beginning, converge those differences in the middle to make it more linear then expand again at the end. It's feels opposite even if in reality that might not be the case.

As for living world aspect I mean reactions by NPC's to your pressence and actions, less of a light switch approach to day and night cycles, vastly more life in the world such as NPC's not being so static and lifeless, wildlife present and increased compared to previous games.

Wind and rain systems, maybe even seasons if game takes place over longer period of time like when start might be summer and the world has that feel both in weather and appearence including how NPC's dress, later maybe it is winter and the town is showered in snow, NPCs are wrapped up to keep warm and different forms of wildlife out and about; all such things having some impact on surroundings and NPC's so they don't just feel like blatent placeholders.

Those would be the two things I hope they would look at. Skyrim too has things I think should look at but thats for another thread.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 03 février 2013 - 12:19 .

[spirosz]

Xiomara wrote...

The Grey Nayr wrote...

What can dragon age learn from the Witcher?

Nudity is more realistic in sex scenes than underwear(Mass Effect 3 could learn from this too. Traynor showering in her underwear: What the hell is with that?)

They have it right in the fact that the player doesn't have to **** everybody.

I'm down with nudity, but I want male nudity too. Funny how many so called "mature" games seem ridiculously coy about showing manly parts....

It is funny, isn't it, haha.  

[Kajagoogoo3]

Windninja47 wrote...

I haven't played the Witcher so I can't really comment. The only thing I really do know about it is that it has no character creator and also has nudity. I personally would prefer if the DA series kept the CC and lack of nudity.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[ghost_ronin]

I would rather say: what can everybody learn from Dark Souls?

[Megakoresh]

ghost_ronin wrote...

I would rather say: what can everybody learn from Dark Souls?

Dragon Age can learn from it only how Dragon Age should never be done. Other than that it's fake difficulty and obscure storyline have no place in story-based RPGs.