177 réponses à ce sujet

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Sutekh wrote...

Narrative-wise, DA2 isn't 3rd person objective. Like DAO, it's 3rd person subjective.

We're moving away from the topic and I have no intention to get myself banned again for 24 hours. Beside, I had already had this 1st person vs 3rd person rolepaying argument with Upsettingshots a year ago. The only difference is, at that time, I shared the same view points as yours. After DA2 and ME 2, however, I'm convinced that Upsettingshot is right that BioWare does design their game exclusively for third person roleplaying. Here are the reasons why I disgree with you.

Sutekh wrote...

Over the shoulder camera is still 3rd person, and only there because the Warden is silent and mostly expressionless, so a long view of an unchanging face would become quite boring (and slightly ridiculous).

To me, the main thing that define first person view point is how you look the world. Your focal point. Over the shoulder camera view still focus your attention to other people in the same way we look as first person. The only difference is, the camera or the "eyes" are located slightly different than true first person view like Skyrim, CoD and other first person games.   

Sutekh wrote...

There are many moments in DAO where the view shifts to "normal" 3rd person view. There are even moments bordering on auto-dialogue (only wordless), where your Warden would have such and such expression you absolutely don't control (the Joining comes to mind, but there are others).

This I never understand since Neverwinter Nights. It's the same argument used by Upsettingshot to justify 3rd person roleplaying a year ago. To me, earlier party based RPG had to used third person camera view because it's impossible to manage tactical party combat in first person camera view, which is why TES is always primary designed to be a single player RPG.  The conversation and the maze-like dungeons exploration, however, were primary view from first person's eyes as an illusion that you are the character despite you're controlling a party, as oppose to top down camera view employed by earlier Final Fantasy series. Baldur Gate is the first to use sprite animation in tactical party based combat but it was Final Fantasy 7 that forever change the RPG view points with realistic graphic  and cinematic cutscenes. It then became clear to me that third person's POV and roleplaying made their way through cinematic experience.  

Sutekh wrote... 
It's also certainly not omniscient. You don't get to know and even less control each characters thoughts, feelings and motivations. You get glimpses through Hawke's eyes, and the interpretation is up to you. There's no voice over telling you "Sister Petrice wanted to kill all Qunari because she viewed them as an insult to the face of her beloved Maker" or "Meredith wanted to wipe mages because of what happened to her sister". You get those info through dialogue, and in the case of Meredith only if you follow a certain path. For all you (the player) actually knows, Petrice's actual motivations might be she was scared by a Qunari as a child. If the game was omniscient, you would know Meredith's true reasons no matter the path chosen. That's what omniscient means. You (the player) would know everything [relevant to the plot].

Third person storytelling never  actually knows what  inside someone head or how someone actually feel. They only make assumption that character X thinks like this or character X feel that way. Just look at Leliana's death in DAO. By logic, she should had been dead if the player choose to behead her, but as Gaider said, it's BioWare who decide what death means. 

Third person observe and make in depth analysis but never actually experience anything by themselves. Their entire omniscient things IS based on assumption about how the world should works as a whole, as oppose to first person storytelling. Whereas in first person storytelling, you know everything about yourself but ONLY about yourself. How you feel and what you thinks is not based on observasion like third person does but through your own experience. This is what matter the most to you in first person roleplaying. Not how the world and external influence should work as a whole as oppose to third person.     

Sutekh wrote...

You - mostly - only know what Hawke knows.

That's not entire true either. Hawke knows where he is, how he feel and what happen to him now. I don't. And neither do you. We don't even know if Hawke still alive by the time Cassandra interrogated Varric. He never show up in flesh. What we only see is what we think we knows about Hawke based on Varric's and Cassandra's information. And even then it's just our imagination. As far as I concern, those are just our imagination instead of a real thing. How can you be sure that Varric is telling the truth? You're not even experience the event yourself but merely relies on third person account. What is the point of DA 2'a unreliable narrator if Not about finding the truth? But why would you want to do that if you're roleplaying as Hawke? Why would you want to know more about yourself if you're roleplaying as Hawke? It just make no sense from Hawke own view point. It just make no sense from first person point of view.

Sutekh wrote...

DAO also has moments of omniscience - more often than DA2, actually - with the interlude cinematics. One perfect exemple would be the Warden's funeral. How can you pretend living this scene through your character's eyes when your character is dead (and their soul destroyed, so no "watching from the Fade" here)?

Because you are no longer play the warden's role but as third person observer?

Sutekh wrote...


As for Hawke being gone, how is that different from an epilogue slide telling me my Warden is having rows with Zevran in the streets of Antiva?

Because the story ends and you are no longer play the warden's role but as third person observer. As oppose to DA 2, when the entire time, from beginning until the end you play the role of third person observer, re-living the event based on someone else account. And not through your own experience because it's already happen ahead of you.

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 03 février 2013 - 02:17 .

[Sinophile]

Dr. Doctor wrote...

One thing I really liked about DA2 is that Hawke has an actual personality established by dialogue choices and any autodialogue that occurs takes account of that personally.

As for the story, the framed narrative approach really limits how much variation you can have in the story. The whole plot already happened so you can't really go off in a direction that doesn't lead to the defined final outcome. It was a neat idea for a mechanic but it was more "the story of how Kirkwall turned to ****" from Hawke's point of view than Hawke's personal story.

DA2 was innovative when it came to storytelling, especially with Varric's unreliable narration. I loved it when he single-handedly gunned down his brother in the mansion, and how Bethany's breast were larger when he "exxagerated" the ogre scene. Sure, when the game started out you had two siblings, a mom, and some other people. However, as noted earlier in the topic, your family, and anything "personal" gets stripped away(Your remaining sibling either joins the Grey wardens or the circle). Thus, all you really do is save Kirkwall from the Qunari.
in DA:O I run into my dad several times throughout the story, Morrigan also asks about my wedding. All the elven people tell me how proud they are of me for doing what I did.

I'm not really expecting to be able to dictate everything that happens in a videogame RPG, if I wanted complete freedom of choice of character background, story progression, etc. I'd play a pen-and-paper RPG.

It also helps to have an active imagination. For example, in DA:O, my City elf was out to prove that elves were not an inferior race of people. He never missed an opportunity to point out that he was an elf, and lived in a big mansion with Leliana and Morrigan at the end of the game.
That being said, current technology does not let us do every conceivable thing we want to do in a video game, but as Bioware and other companies have been working to make video games more and more interactive.

[Dabrikishaw]

Saving the World

[AstraDrakkar]

Saving the world is more my style as well.

[Sinophile]

Saving the World is way over done, although for good reasons. In the original Witcher, I saved the princess from being a Striga, and romanced Dani the doctor lady. However, both of these choices are completely forgotten except in passing in the sequel. Supposedly, the storyline is way different if you side with the other guy instead of Scoia tell, but I could never bring myself to play W2 a second time. When I hear personal story I think of Inu Yasha(not an RPG unless you count the PS2 game). Inu Yasha cared only for killing Naraku, but would occasionally slay demons in his adventures and save villages.

[Medhia Nox]

I don't need to save the "world" - but I will not endorse another game where I'm simply a bystander to the actions of a game developer's NPCs.

I read books to be an observer.

[Megakoresh]

Medhia Nox wrote...

I don't need to save the "world" - but I will not endorse another game where I'm simply a bystander to the actions of a game developer's NPCs.

I read books to be an observer.

That depends on whether or not it's done right. In Witcher 2 you are playing a very much personal story. Yet under no circumstances can anyone say that you are simply a bystander.

[adam32867]

the wardens story was much more personal to me I was a human noble so i had the death of my family to avenge on the more personal level of the story, and then the blight to deal with on a more global scale. Then you have the companions which i thought were a ton more interesting, in DA:O you get to question them on their life and make a connection with their character. in DA 2 the info they gave out only seemed like stuff relevant to the story, its nice to have the irrelevant stuff in there as well. also hawk just kinda felt like he was someone else character and i just decided what emotions he would feel at any given moment.

[Megakoresh]

adam32867 wrote...

the wardens story was much more personal to me I was a human noble so i had the death of my family to avenge on the more personal level of the story, and then the blight to deal with on a more global scale. Then you have the companions which i thought were a ton more interesting, in DA:O you get to question them on their life and make a connection with their character. in DA 2 the info they gave out only seemed like stuff relevant to the story, its nice to have the irrelevant stuff in there as well. also hawk just kinda felt like he was someone else character and i just decided what emotions he would feel at any given moment.

I agree with almost everything you've said, with an exception that the Origins story didn't feel as a personal story for me on the same level as DA2 did, even though Human Noble is the best Origin in that regard (and most others too, it's really the most enjoyable and interesting Origin, with Circle mage being a significant distance behind).

I said it in the OP, that characters and interactions with them are a LOT better and more engaging in Origins than in DA2, so I obviously agree with you there. And you make a good point there: we weren't allowed to question characters on their lives and ask about how they lived it and do live now and make judgements, which is a large reason why they felt a lot more disconnected.

I do not agree, however, on the last point completely. The way Hawk developed personality throughout DA2 was actually a crazy good mechanic that I haven't seen in any other game to this point. the ability to shape a character's personality yourself throughout the game? To me it definitely feels like he is MY character.

It was obviously very VERY simplistic and I hope DA3 goes WAY beyond in that respect as it's something really innovative. It's not like in Mass Effect, where you can be A or B (or rather P or R, EA's favourite letters), but you can be full Paragon, then make a totally renegade decision and say exactly same lines as if you were full Renegade. You can't do that in DA2. If I go mostly or full humorous, then if I selected a seemigly badass or ultra-monk-rainbow-puking-love-everyone-no-****** line, he would still try to make it sound funny in most cases, although not all, which annoyed me greatly because sometimes he'd change his tone compeletely which was such horrendous immersion breaker. But it's still an interesting and cool direction to go for IMO, they just need to do it all properly.

In the end it all comes down to that: Can they do it properly. Most people here have their opinion set on Origins-style game because that's something they know BioWare can do right if they try (like with ME3, they didn't try, for instance, the failure of that game was hardly because of lack of talent or experience, they just didn't care since they knew it was going to sell well anyway). But I am willing to highlight some of the better ideas they had in DA2. There is only greater benefit for taking what was good in both games. Doesn't matter if the second one had less good in it, it still had some. One could even say it had enough, if it wasn't BioWare who was making it.

Modifié par Megakoresh, 04 février 2013 - 08:37 .

[Get Magna Carter]

Megakoresh wrote...

Get Magna Carter wrote...

It could be argued that Dragon Age Origins is about saving a large country from an invading force while Dragon Age 2 was about saving a very small country from internal conflicts.
How personal either of these are is subjective - in both cases the player is "railroaded" into following the plot and doing what other people want them to do rather than following their own agenda.

Is it? Who or what exactly did you save in DA2? Except for yourself that is?

You think the Qunari were going to stop killing people and go away of their own initiative?
Or that Meredith and Orsino were going to kiss and make up and peacefully end the conflict?
We can't know for sure who else would have been killed or if anyone else would have stopped it but we do know that Hawke brought both conflicts to an end restoring some order in the city and probably saved many lives in so doing.

[Megakoresh]

Get Magna Carter wrote...
You think the Qunari were going to stop killing people and go away of their own initiative?
Or that Meredith and Orsino were going to kiss and make up and peacefully end the conflict?
We can't know for sure who else would have been killed or if anyone else would have stopped it but we do know that Hawke brought both conflicts to an end restoring some order in the city and probably saved many lives in so doing.

Well, fair enough, but it's still not your pre-determined mission and it is not the sole reason you actually exist, which it is in Origins. That's the main point.

Modifié par Megakoresh, 10 février 2013 - 08:09 .

[CyberMurph]

I felt like it was the opposite. DA:O was much more "saving the world from the Evil Thing attacking us for no reason". Whereas DA2 was more focused on Hawk, her family and their fight for survival and a secure future.

IN regards to the setting, for me the Templar/Chantry vs Mages conflict was more meaningful to character development than "The Demon From Beyond That Reminds Me Precisely of Sovereign from ME". Clearly that is where the setting is headed; a showdown between the Chantry and Mages.

It seems to me that many sci-fi/fantasy gamers confuse back-story / origin story for 'character'. Character is something that develops during the story, not during the opening sequence.

[CyberMurph]

nightcobra8928 wrote...

can't a story about saving the world be also a personal story? the two aren't mutually exclusive.

You are exactly correct.

For example: Star Wars was not about blowing up the Death Star or destroying the Galatic Empire. It was about the rise, fall and redemption of Darth Vader / Anakin Skywalker. The rest was just setting and events.

War and Peace is not about the Napoleonic Wars and the battles of Austerlitz and Borodino, even though all feature prominantly and are major events in the setting. It is the story of Pierre Bezukhov and Natasha Rostov and how world events and the families they belong to shape them and their lives.

The fact that these two examples are personal stories does not prevent them from being "Epic". Far from it. Both set the standards for "Epic" in their mediums. One is likely the most influential film of my generation and the other is widley recognized as the greatest novel ever written.

The problem for sci-fi / fantasy gaming is that what passes for "story" is actually setting and events. Take, for instance, the three endings of ME3. All had far reaching consequences for the *setting*, but had the exact same consequence for the main character.

I actually see DA2, for all its flaws, as a step in the right direction, in that it focused on Hawke and not the setting.

Modifié par CyberMurph, 10 février 2013 - 03:41 .

[Missy_MI]

CyberMurph wrote...
I felt like it was the opposite. DA:O was much more "saving the world from the Evil Thing attacking us for no reason". Whereas DA2 was more focused on Hawk, her family and their fight for survival and a secure future.

I agree with this. I enjoyed both games but prefer the more cliche but clearly defined and morally unambiguous 'stop the evil' goal from Origins. Simply because stopping that evil at the very end of the game makes my character feel more like a hero.

I can try to roleplay that all mages or templars are evil in DAII, but the game makes that very difficult. There are plenty of shades of gray and regardless of which side you choose in the end, your character takes part in starting a larger war, not preventing it. That does not make me feel like a hero, even if I managed to save my sibling's life.

[duckley]

Megakoresh wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

DA:O was a better personal story for me than DA2

I don't think you understand the meaning of "Personal story".

Dragon Age: Origins did not have one. That is pretty much a fact.

You have a personal story up until the "Origins" quest ends. After that you 

• Get picked out by a bearded pal with sad face and "Old Hero_template" voice
• Thrown into battle/test
• Obviously the only one to survive
• Obviously "Old Hero_template" dies (that was evident just from how boring he was from the start)
• Now you and that other funny dude (First he looks like "Atmosphere_balancer_template" actually, until you get to know him better, are the only ones left
• Now you must go on a mission to save Ferelden

Where is "Personal" there? It doesn't exist. If you managed to get yourself into shoes of the PC, make up an agenda, desires and feelings and roleplay that, that is a strength of Game Designers and Writers who create dialogue choices. But the Storyline as it stands has absolutely NOTHING personal about it. Nothing.

That was my point. In Origins you are playing a PC. In DA2 you are playing Hawk.

Actually - it was not so much the Warden's personal story that I found interesting or even well-developed. Alistairs personal story was compelling to me - his transition to King, his childhood experiences and struggles, his experience with loss, his personal growth and change is what grabbed me more than the Warden.
I would love to see the main character's story  being better developed in DA:I
I agree though that Hawke's personal story was lacking...

[SirGladiator]

If the whole 'personal/family story' had been done better in DA2 this would've been a much tougher call, as it is clearly DAO is superior in every way. The only thing you can do is save Bethany at the end, if you've done everything right up to that point. Otherwise you save nothing at all, whereas in DAO you save the entire nation, thats quite a difference. Also, if playing as a human noble in DAO, you get the exact same result no matter what you do, your sibling alive at the end, the rest of your family dead. So you still get the exact same personal/family result, plus you get to save the world, in DAO. Now, if you got to save your entire family in DA2, truly save the city of Kirkwall and stop the whole civil war thing, etc (at least in that one city, obviously the civil war in other parts of the world is a necessary part of the DA3 plot), then you'd be talking about an interesting discussion as to which was better. But since we're talking about what really happened, there's no contest, DAO hands down on this topic, what you do matters in a big, big way. What you do matters in a small, small way in DA2.

[Megakoresh]

duckley wrote...
Actually - it was not so much the Warden's personal story that I found interesting or even well-developed. Alistairs personal story was compelling to me - his transition to King, his childhood experiences and struggles, his experience with loss, his personal growth and change is what grabbed me more than the Warden. 
I would love to see the main character's story  being better developed in DA:I
I agree though that Hawke's personal story was lacking...

Yeah, the characters in Origins were a lot more compelling because of how deep your interactions with them were. I feel like they had this potential in DA2 but it was completely wasted because the game was rushed and oversimplified.

I hope that Inquisition will deal with both swiftly. That is both have character interaction on the level of Origins and not cut off personal storyline and goals at the end of the "Origins" quest of sort, only to ahve scattered fragments of it left for the duraction of the game.

Is making good combat too much to ask as well?

Honestly if Inquisition happens to be a title we are all hoping for (that is up to BioWare's Pre-DA2/ME3 standard), then, considering Witcher 3 comes out the same year, I doubt we'll need any other games that year at all. 

[Dave of Canada]

Dragon Age: Origins had a bland premise done well, it could've had improvements in certain areas but what story doesn't?

Dragon Age 2 was the opposite, it was an amazing premise done horribly with irrelevant time-skips and insanity playing too crucial a role in a plot which it wasn't necessary.

Shame the premise is being insulted and ignored when the implementation was the problem.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 12 février 2013 - 10:58 .

[Megakoresh]

Dave of Canada wrote...
Shame the premise is being insulted and ignored when the implementation was the problem.

You are literally the first person I have ever seen (apart from myself) who realises that. Like literally, the first. Thank you for your existence.

Modifié par Megakoresh, 12 février 2013 - 12:03 .

[Wulfram]

It's really easy to have an amazing premise in theory, when you can toss out all the problems as implementation.

Though I do wonder what you think the amazing premise actually was.

[Navasha]

Honestly, I will take a Personal story over a save the world story any day of the week with the caveat that it is done WELL. A personal story done well means that it actually should fell PERSONAL. The player must become invested in the story and characters.

DA2 tried the personal story, but it just failed to connect to people. The siblings death in the beginning. Pretty much no one felt any pain or loss for what should have been a brother/sister. We knew them all of 30 seconds.

Personal stories are much harder to convey to an audience, but they are much more powerful when they are done right.

[Megakoresh]

 Let's change this around a bit. Why don't you post top 3 "Personal story" games and top 3 "Save the world" games? That would be interesting.
Please think in terms of the following:
For personal story what games made you care most about stuff that is important for the main character and the main character him or herself.
For saving the world think what games made you care most about things not directly related to the main character like the world, newly met characters, locations and epic scale battles.

I will start:

Personal story:

• Witcher 1
• Witcher 2
• Dragon Age 2

"Save the world" type of story:

• Mass Effect 2
• Bastion
• Dragon Age: Origins

This is actually a very interesting experiment, as just thinking about it shows how tough the topic really is.It took a long time to come up with the list of best 3 for personal story. And it wasn't because candidates were close.

For instance you have to realize that KoR: Reckoning doesn't fir either, because the main quest there doesn't actually make you care about anything, you are a black state character all the time, and the world being so alive and engaging never really feels as it is in danger, even though it very much reacts to you and your actions.[*]
[*]PS: I wonder what is more f-ed up: their text editor or process of Broodmother creation? I would go with this text editor. Seriously, WTF?!

Modifié par Megakoresh, 12 février 2013 - 02:35 .

[Navasha]

Take Assassins Creed series for instance. I LOVED playing through the life as Ezio. Even the missions where you were simply following your teen-age sweetheart through the streets were engaging. The "frame" story of Desmond saving the world seemed almost inconsequential to me. It was the full connection to the "memory" of the entire life of Ezio that was the most intriguing part.

Even in 3... I was more connected to the new assassin than I was for Desmond.

[Megakoresh]

Navasha wrote...

Take Assassins Creed series for instance. I LOVED playing through the life as Ezio. Even the missions where you were simply following your teen-age sweetheart through the streets were engaging. The "frame" story of Desmond saving the world seemed almost inconsequential to me. It was the full connection to the "memory" of the entire life of Ezio that was the most intriguing part.

Even in 3... I was more connected to the new assassin than I was for Desmond.

This is a very good example actually. Ezio was a fantastic protagonist, which is one of the keys to making a good personal story.

One may argue that with BioWare it's all about roleplaying, but one does not explude another. DA2 has a really cool idea of developing a character WITHIN the main character. It just wasn't, as wasn't most of the game, properly executed. But the roots were there.

I said it and will say again: I would love them to go that path, and allow us to shape and develop not only our companions but the main character himself. Or herself, whatever you prefer. In DA2, for example a humorous Hawk would react different to some situations than Renegade or Paragon Hawk.

But it was all too simple. This direction is new, and could bring more uniqueness to DA3. I think having something totally unique is what BioWare games have always been missing. They are very much Holleywood-style, even though much more engaging (apart from ME3, of course).

Modifié par Megakoresh, 12 février 2013 - 05:55 .

[Renmiri1]

Some people like DA2 a lot more than DAO, myself included