5 réponses à ce sujet

[ISpeakTheTruth]

As some of you may remember when DA2 was about to be released they told us that the class Hawke starts as would automatically determine which of his/her siblings would survive and die. Now when I frist heard that you weren't going to have any control over which of your siblings would live and die that made me worried that the entire game would severly lack choice and as we know DA2 was a game that had virtually no real choice in it at all.

Now I think that when information is being given to us we should be very aware of any information that say we'd be given a situation that is similar to what happened with Carver and Bethany. If we have a situation that is similar then I'd say it might be fair to assume we have a game that is going to be more like DA2 then DAO.

Modifié par ISpeakTheTruth, 03 février 2013 - 01:45 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I guess they probably figured no one would save Carver if given the chance. Maybe that's why he's such a bummer to be around all of the time.

Primarily narrative.  Part of the dynamic with the siblings was that there was something intrinsically different between them and the player character (one is a mage, one is not).  Allowing full player choice over which sibling dies would require additional writing for the sibling/PC dynamic to make sense.  Could be done, yes, but then this ends up becoming similar to other requests for more content.


The primary reason why I, as a game player, have little issue with who dies in the prologue is because it requires metagame knowledge to know that there's a difference, and it's a character that isn't the player making their own decision to do their own thing.  Yes, we do not strictly adhere to this in normal content.  Though in order to remain consistent would require us to remove all control from the party, and allow the player to only influence the player character.  In this sense it's something that wouldn't allow us to make everyone happy, because there are those that would miss the full party control in combat.

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't think that would have taken that much time for the VA to do things of that nature. Would it have made some of the tension between Hawke and the sibling away because they'd be more similar? Yes. But why is that a bad thing?

It's not a bad thing, it's just a different thing.

Also the fact that our sibling is only in 1/3 of the game again was it really that tight on time that it couldn't be done?

DAO had several factors more time, and was still "tight on time." Unfortunately, it's not just as simple as going in and adding a few more lines of dialogue here or there, especially if the decision comes late in the development cycle.

Your suggestion would go a lot faster earlier in the development cycle, but would actually take a lot longer, and be more expensive, the closer it gets to the end of the development time. So how difficult it would be would depend in large part on when we decided "This isn't going to work."

Making decisions in software development is almost always faster and cheaper the earlier you decide to do something (same goes for things like fixing bugs and so forth - the earlier you find them, the less cost is incurred).

On top of the actual costs of doing the content itself, is also the opportunity cost. There's pretty much never any time when people aren't working on something. Any time spent on one thing is time not spent on something else. So again, the earlier we catch it, the lower the opportunity cost. The later, the higher the opportunity cost.

[Allan Schumacher]

The problem with this is that you are going down a very slippery slope. If you have no problem with choice being taken away from you as it requires metagaming to know that there could have been another outcome than one could expand that to a compleetly linear game.

Now I think the fact that you guys make RPG's makes this more of a slippery slope than if you made action-adventure games as it also has to do with managing expectations.

When i pick up an action-adventure game i expect it to be linier and that the story that it tells, if story focused, to be more akin to movies or books -- that's to say non-interactive. With RPG's on the other hand i expect my choices to at least vaguely matter and that i can influence outcomes. DA2 is not bad if you look at it as an action-adventure, indeed much of my problams with the game would probably have been lessened with that label. The problem is that it is labled as an RPG, and every step of the way, all major plot points have already been decided upon before i even start the game.

I can understand your criticisms in terms of player agency and lack of differences in an RPG when applied towards DA2, but I think the criticisms are better applied to other parts of the game and not the sibling death in the prologue.  Especially since the sibling death actually does reflect some level of difference that happens within the game.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 03 février 2013 - 09:53 .

[Allan Schumacher]

This is true. But in lines with the original topic, this smaller example of plot railroading from what we were presented pre-release was endemic of DEEPER examples of plot railroading later in the game.

Is this really plot railroading? Wouldn't that be "the same sibling dies regardless?"

Something different ends up happening. People are upset, though, because they want to be able to influence the choice. Would they not feel this way (if not moreso) if Bethany always died?

Couldn't the argument be made for any event in the game being "railroaded" if this is an example of railroading? Why *must* I go to Lothering? Why *must* I bring Alistair along? Why *must* I gather all the treaties?


At some point it starts to seem like it's more "You have branched the game, but it doesn't branch in a way that I consider logical (nor in a way that I want) and that makes me disappointed" as opposed to "There is no branch at this point in the game. It's the same thing every time and that makes me disappointed."

[Allan Schumacher]

First, I'd expect real life to have greater variety of choice.

Second, real life is also fraught with situations where things don't play out the way I want them to, no matter how much influence I attempt to change the outcome.

Analogues to real life aren't really relevant, because you rarely get a chance to redo your experiences in real life. As such, it actually becomes exceedingly difficult to determine how much free will you actually exerted (There's whole schools of psychology that feel that free will is just an illusion).

As such, the only reason why you're actually able to conclude that you have no "real choice" with Hawke's mother is because you're able to completely replay the scene with prior knowledge that the character wouldn't have. A benefit I'm sure we'd all wish to have in real life, but do not.