588 réponses à ce sujet

[AmstradHero]

Imrahil_ wrote...

Here's a minor encounter - how do you do this with only the diaolgue wheel?  Look at all the options you have in each response.

If you actually break that conversation down functionally, it would be very easy to separate the sub-categories off into an investigation hub. It would be fairly trivial to recast the dialogue into a wheel without losing a single dialogue option, and it would make it clearer where you're holding or progressing the conversation to boot.

If you really think that it would be difficult to present that same conversation on a dialogue wheel, then I suggest that you haven't really considered or examined the construction of dialogue in the list versus the wheel. As a modder, I have.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 20 février 2013 - 06:03 .

[Imrahil_]

That's just the two my connection allowed me to see..

Get a better computer & we can talk.  If you can't even watch the videos I presented as examples, you can't realisticly comment on them.  You're responding to what you wish they showed, not what they show.

[Imrahil_]

AmstradHero wrote...
If you actually break that conversation down functionally, it would be very easy to separate the sub-categories off into an investigation hub. It would be fairly trivial to recast the dialogue into a wheel without losing a single dialogue option, and it would make it clearer where you're holding or progressing the conversation to boot.

Then do it.  Don't say it can be done, do it.

[addiction21]

ignorance is really bliss. I'd rather live in hell.

[jackkel dragon]

Imrahil_ wrote...

That's just the two my connection allowed me to see..

Get a better computer & we can talk.  If you can't even watch the videos I presented as examples, you can't realisticly comment on them.  You're responding to what you wish they showed, not what they show.

I think this is the first time I was dismissed because the other people in my building were using up my bandwidth. Does a temporary internet connection problem make any evidence I present invalid?

Also, AmstradHero has a point. The conversations in DAO and DA2 use the same tree-branching format internally, it's only on the player's end that the Investigation nodes and normal nodes are separate.

 

Then do it. Don't say it can be done, do it.

That seems like a redundant and pointless demand. Redundant because I've just shown you that any line in DAO can be mapped to a wheel (regardless of whether it fits the arbitrary 3-tones 5-investigates 2-specials guidelines), pointless because there are no modder tools that can be used to demonstrate any more clearly than the examples already presented.

If you want me to break open the toolset and make you a pretty chart of every PC node turned into a dialogue wheel, I'll get right on that. But I'm getting the feeling you don't care whether it's actually possible or not: you've already made up your mind.

[AmstradHero]

Imrahil_ wrote...

That's just the two my connection allowed me to see..

Get a better computer & we can talk.  If you can't even watch the videos I presented as examples, you can't realisticly comment on them.  You're responding to what you wish they showed, not what they show.

So you choose to ignore the part where he actually provided a perfectly valid solution to "problem" shown at the start of the video but instead just dismiss him entirely? Please.

The core dialogue is actually quite simple to represent on a wheel, even when I add in the additional possible option where you can ask about the control rod. (I'm looking at the conversation in the toolset, you see)

Did you buy a control rod? About five years ago?  <--\\    /--> Who are you, anyway?
(Investigate) <--       -->  Let's see what you have
I hear you're charging the militia for ale. <--/   \\--> I should go.

Investigate sub-hub
Shouldn't you be helping defend the village? <--\\    /--> What do you know about that elf in the corner?
Why are you still open? <--       -->  (Return)
What do you know about what's happened here? <--/  \\--)

You actually save a line here because you don't need to have the "Let's talk about something else" in the investigation hub to get back to the main hub. Alternatively, for an even better and more cohesive dialogue, you'd actually shift the "who are you, anyway?" line to the investigate hub, because it fits better there. Leaving only quest relevant investigations on the left side of the main hub, a purchase option in the top/middle, and the conversation end option at the bottom right.

As I said. It's straightforward to translate a DAO list into a wheel. Now that I've given you one example of how it's very easy to translate between the two, as an intelligent person, I'm sure you can extrapolate as to how it would work in almost all other cases as well.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 20 février 2013 - 07:02 .

[addiction21]

jackkel dragon wrote...


I think this is the first time I was dismissed because the other people in my building were using up my bandwidth. Does a temporary internet connection problem make any evidence I present invalid?

If you do not agree then yes. Any reason to present your opinion as invalid will suffice.

[Imrahil_]

jackkel dragon wrote...
I think this is the first time I was dismissed because the other people in my building were using up my bandwidth. Does a temporary internet connection problem make any evidence I present invalid?

Well, yes.  If I've presented a 4 minute video on YouTube as evidence, & you want to refute that, then, well, yes, you need to watch it.  See all the dialogue choices it shows.  I mean, you can refrain from posting, or just say "despite your video, I believe this...", but you can't try to address my points which are specifically supported by a video without watching the video.  That seems, reasonable?

Also, AmstradHero has a point. The conversations in DAO and DA2 use the same tree-branching format internally, it's only on the player's end that the Investigation nodes and normal nodes are separate.

No, they don't use the same format.  That's what I tried to show by presenting viedos which, IMO, can't be replicated by a Wheel.  That's my evidence.  If you want to refute my evidence, you can either dismiss it out of hand, which doesn't help your case, or watch it, & address it.

That seems like a redundant and pointless demand. Redundant because I've just shown you that any line in DAO can be mapped to a wheel (regardless of whether it fits the arbitrary 3-tones 5-investigates 2-specials guidelines), pointless because there are no modder tools that can be used to demonstrate any more clearly than the examples already presented.

But you haven't shown that.  You've simply claimed that.  Which is why I think it's fair to ask that you watch the video(s) I presented as evidence.  You can't just dismiss it while claiming you can't watch it.  There's several dialogues in it.  Not just the first one.

If you want me to break open the toolset and make you a pretty chart of every PC node turned into a dialogue wheel, I'll get right on that. But I'm getting the feeling you don't care whether it's actually possible or not: you've already made up your mind.

No.  Show me it can be replicated with a Wheel.  If you wanna go to that amount of effort & actually pull it off, I'll be convinced.  The thing is you can't just claim it.  I said it can't be done.  If you show me it can be, I'll admit I'm wrong.  But you can't even watch the whole video I showed, so I'm sorry, but that's enough to dismiss your claim in my book.

Modifié par Imrahil_, 20 février 2013 - 06:28 .

[Imrahil_]

AmstradHero wrote...
So you choose to ignore the part where he actually provided a perfectly valid solution to "problem" shown at the start of the video but instead just dismiss him entirely? Please.

The Connor video, if that's what you mean, has several dialogues, not just the very first one that was addressed poorly.

[AmstradHero]

Really? The Connor dialogue has three choices for almost all of the nodes in the dialogue. The dialogue with Lloyd is actually more complex in terms of construction.

Both the "Do you know what she is, Connor?" and "I need to help your father" nodes can be put on the left as part of an investigate hub. The two additional options that the former spawns "She's not a person, she's a demon" and then "Does she have a name?" could easily be added to the investigate node to permit progression of that line of questioning.

After "I'm afraid this has to end now", the first three options can easily be put on the right hand side, with the fourth option "I... can't do it, I can't attack a child." appearing as a choice on the bottom left.

All remaining options within this dialogue and Isolde's only have three options. (Actually, if you choose the non-violent option, you get another four-way node, but again, this is easily solved by placing the last one on the bottom left.)

Now that you have two examples, I'm certain you should be able to figure out the rest for yourself. If not, then I suggest you start researching the Dragon Age toolset and open up the dialogue trees and examine them to work it out.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 20 février 2013 - 06:54 .

[Imrahil_]

Thank you for proving my point.

[AmstradHero]

Except your point was that it could not be replicated with a wheel, whereas I have demonstrated, not once, but TWICE, that it can be.

If you would like to demonstrate how I have not done that, I'll gladly accept your argument. Otherwise, to quote you directly: "You haven't shown that. You've simply claimed it."

[Imrahil_]

You broke the dialogue wheel to show how it could possibly done, & also admitted that the Lloyd dialogue is more complex. You've done my job better than I could have done.

[AmstradHero]

The dialogue wheel was not broken at any point, and I said the Lloyd dialogue is more complex than the Connor dialogue. Both are still easily represented by the wheel, and arguably the wheel can actually present Lloyd's dialogue MORE effectively than a list.

I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand how the dialogue is constructed, and that my previous assumption that you did was inaccurate.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 20 février 2013 - 07:04 .

[Imrahil_]

Lol, this is fun. I like when you make my points for me. How many questions did you put off in the Investigate side, implying they couldn't be handled by the Wheel?

EDIT: How many of the Lloyd questions must be shunted off to Investigate?

Modifié par Imrahil_, 20 février 2013 - 07:11 .

[AmstradHero]

Ah, right. I see the source of your confusion. You're interpreting the investigation sub-hub as a failure. That's a bit of a gross misunderstanding on your part as to how the conversations are constructed. That said, I suppose I can understand if you haven't examined this in any detail and are just relying on a superficial analysis.

Allow me to explain and educate you.

With the list layout, you have a main hub that consists of:
Who are you, anyway?
Did you buy a control rod? About five years ago?
I'd like to ask you some questions.
Let's see what you have
I hear you're charging the militia for ale.
I should go.

Selecting option 3 gives you a line of filler dialogue "what do you want to know about?" and then the following options in an investigation sub-hub:
Shouldn't you be helping defend the village?
What do you know about that elf in the corner?
Why are you still open?
What do you know about what's happened here?
Let's talk about something else.
I should go.

Note that in this sub-hub, you are forced to add the "Let's talk about something else" line as filler content to permit the player to return to the main hub. It is also necessary to replicate the "I should go" line that exists in the main-hub, in case the player wants to quit talking without returning to the main-hub.

Thus in this way we actually end up with four lines of dialogue (two voiced by the NPC, and two unvoiced by the PC) that serve PURELY a mechanical function rather than a content function. In this way, from a list view, an investigation sub-hub can only ever have a maximum of FOUR choices (because of the need for these two options) as opposed to the five that can be offered by the wheel.

If we switch to the wheel setup as outlined previously, not only can we choose to eliminate these lines entirely (though we could choose to keep them in), but we enable the player to easily select any of those lines from the one joint hub.

Hopefully you understand this now.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 20 février 2013 - 07:28 .

[Conduit0]

AmstradHero, let me give you a piece of advice, just give up. Nothing you do or say will ever convince him. You could create a mod that completely replaces DAO's conversation system with a wheel, record every conversation in the game using the wheel and then post the resulting video on youtube for him to view and he would still find some BS excuse to tell you, you're wrong. DA2 haters live in their own special little world where they're always right and anyone who disagrees with them is always wrong, no matter how much evidence is presented.

Modifié par Conduit0, 20 février 2013 - 07:21 .

[Imrahil_]

AmstradHero wrote...
If we switch to the wheel setup as outlined previously, not only can we choose to eliminate these lines entirely (though we could choose to keep them in), but we enable the player to easily select any of those lines from the one joint hub.

I'm going to address one of your last lines just because I think it's the most important, although I really think your reliance on the Investigate sub-hub is an intrinsic failure.

We should never allow player-convenience to override WHAT THE CHARACTER MIGHT SAY.  I apologize for caps, & note that I haven't done it before now, so I feel it's so important to be warranted.

You're trying to eliminate the ability of The Character to get to a certain point through dialogue!  I think that may be a fatal flaw in our argument.  I think, & correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you're coming at this from the POV of The Player.  Not The Character.

The Wheel makes it easy for The Player.  A List makes it more realistic for The Character, even if The Player knows what's going to happen.

Consider the Connor dialogue again, if you just want to navigate through the encounter, The Wheel gives you the options to express what The Player wants to happen.  Choose A to have resolution 1 happen.  Choose 2 to have resolution 2 happen.

It does not allow for The Character to express his feelings.  This is, IMO, why you thin it's OK to shunt important questions off to Investigate.  You aren't playing The Character, who needs to have those options available in order to be a Character in the game.

You know how you, The Player, want to navigate the encounter, so you're satisfied with 3 options (plus some irrelevant questions).  But someone who is role-playing The Character, needs those options available, alongside the story-driven responses that The Player needs to continue the game.

The Character needs to have option #4, which is kind of irrelevant, available as a choice among other choices, not off to the side as an irrelevant Investigate choice.

Ah, right. I see the source of your confusion. You're interpreting the investigation sub-hub as a failure. That's a bit of a gross misunderstanding on your part as to how the conversations are constructed. That said, I suppose I can understand if you haven't examined this in any detail and are just relying on a superficial analysis.

Could you be a little more condescending?  I'm not quite getting your disdain.  Try a little harder. 

Yes, the sub-hub is a failure.  It shunts all non-relevant questions off to the side.  More specifically, it *identifies* which questions are non-relevant.  The Character wants to ask these questions.  The Player, clearly, by virtue of them being in Investigate, doesn't need to.  Separating these things is, well, wrong.  Just wrong.  That's where I'm coming from.

A tree of 5-7 questions doesn't tell you which things are important & which aren't.  A Wheel clearly indicates which questions are pointless,

Modifié par Imrahil_, 20 février 2013 - 07:43 .

[TuringPoint]

 The guy... totally misses the point.

There were blood mages in DA2, a lot, and if he looked at the plot he would've known why.  I may be misunderstanding what he's referring to.  But I think he's pretty clear.

That there was such an excess of enemies overall, that's another issue.  Continuous waves of street fighters crawling from the open sky and from every nook and cranny was ridiculous, tedious filler, that deserved criticism as such.

He criticises the alignment system, with the companion gift system (?????) as an example. No game that I know of has really 'hit it' on the head as far as consequences go.  Not in the hand-crafted, story-driven type of game anyway.
It might feel cheap to be able to make up for stuff with presents; it's a complicated issue, anyway, the pc-npc relationship is.  Having a rival or friendly relationship with followers was a step in the right direction, although it was still too linear to feel truly authentic.  It was too much like light/dark side points.


Overall...

He talks about a lot of features players have chronically clamored for.  Rather than givin any criticisms that were suited to the franchise.

He clearly hated the game, whatever his colleagues at PC World said.  I didn't hate the game this much, in so many ways.  Or perhaps he's just searching for things to nitpick.  Hard to tell.

I agree with most of what he says on the game mechanics though.  Oh well.

Modifié par Alocormin, 20 février 2013 - 07:52 .

[Lucy Glitter]

I, myself, am a lover of the silent protagonist. The wheel mechanic and visual itself wasn't a problem for me. It was that a lot of the paraphrasing being not what I wanted it to turn out like. That and I like my RPG protagonists to be as much my character as I can have. My

I think there is a nice medium in voiced dialogue wheels between Deus Ex's Jensen saying exactly the words that you click on and the paraphrasing. Paraphrasing gets tricky, though, because I think how someone paraphrases a line is entirely a personal choice. For instance;

"I want to help your village in any way possible. Let me track down those bandits for you." could be paraphrased into so many different ways. It could be an action, "[Offer Help]" or to simplify it, "I will get the bandits." or even just a good deed symbol to click on.

Problem is that you need to make the protagonist have character. That is done with both the writer and voice over artist. No matter what they do, I feel a personality or emotion will be put onto that character. One I may not want or expect. So the writer may try to neutralise the words and make them as open as possible and that may then make the character just boring and devoid of anything. Or, the writer/VO may put a few different personalities into the different choices. Like in DA2. What if you don't like how it sounds? I just think the middle line doesn't work for the audience at all. 

Perhaps it's that I grew up with my rpgs giving the player that kind of choice and so I am used to it now and I don't want anything different. No, that's entirely it, actually. I just... find it hard to adapt to voiced protagonists. I just think it's an all or nothing kind of thing. Trying to give your players choice doesn't work, imo. It just... like, it's like walking into a movie expecting one thing from trailers or whatnot and it turns out entirely different. Thing is, it's not a movie. A game is a medium that focuses more on control with the audience than a book or a movie. I feel I lose that control with the choice to make a half and half between voiced and silent. I get given so much choice and when I make my character in the creation screen, I decide things for them. They might be stoic, or energetic or obnoxious or strong or romantic.. and then most of those choices (when i start playing) die a slow and painful death when I realise I can't get my character to say the things I want them to say and I also don't control every word they say. I found it hard to adapt, as well, when the last game in the series was so different. I feel a consistency should show through in that kind of mechanic.

Of course we are also not given full control in silent protagonist games, either. I mean, we don't choose how our character words something in the game world. Thing is, I can prepare myself for that. I read the options, and choose the one I feel my character would say and I imagine how they would say it and I feel that is choice enough for me. 

Hm.

The Hierophant wrote...

MissOuJ wrote...

Anita Sarkeesian.

Ugh, that situation was all around stupid. But it's hilarious how she hoodwinked all those idiots into giving her over $100,000 while she didn't make that "sexism in gaming" video like she promised. 

Most of her videos are insulting to me. Only a couple I have seen are valid and most of them are her just mistaking a perfectly good and viable female character with sexism because that female in question has boobs. I don't condone her being bullied at all, mind you. No one deserves that. Doesn't mean I don't think she's an idiot.

Modifié par Lucy_Glitter, 20 février 2013 - 08:03 .

[AmstradHero]

Imrahil_ wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
Ah, right. I see the source of your confusion. You're interpreting the investigation sub-hub as a failure. That's a bit of a gross misunderstanding on your part as to how the conversations are constructed. That said, I suppose I can understand if you haven't examined this in any detail and are just relying on a superficial analysis.

Could you be a little more condescending?  I'm not quite getting your disdain.  Try a little harder. 

Yes, the sub-hub is a failure.  It shunts all non-relevant questions off to the side.  More specifically, it *identifies* which questions are non-relevant.  The Character wants to ask these questions.  The Player, clearly, by virtue of them being in Investigate, doesn't need to.  Separating these things is, well, wrong.  Just wrong.  That's where I'm coming from.

A tree of 5-7 questions doesn't tell you which things are important & which aren't.  A Wheel clearly indicates which questions are pointless,

No, that wasn't condescending. I'm just noting that you don't understand how the conversations are constructed from a design perspective. Again, this is entirely reasonable if you haven't examined them in-depth or looked at how they're put together in the toolset. It's just that if you're commenting on this, I would have expected that level of analysis, otherwise you're making uninformed comments. I'm trying to rectify that. If you'd demonstrated an understanding of the design, I wouldn't have needed to explicitly state this.

As I explained before, your complaint isn't intrinsicly with the wheel, this is a mechanical complaint about the conveying the purpose of the lines. From a design point of view, this actually provides the player with MORE information with which to make an intelligent and informed choice about which dialogue choice they should pick.

You're objecting to this because you believe it is promoting metagaming by allowing the player to shortcut the conversation (even though you're not stating it that way). Conversely, this actually allows the player to make an informed choice about what will progress the dialogue and what will not. This is not a failure. It allows the player AND the character, to deliberately choose to investigate everything instead of accidentally progressing the dialogue when they did not intend to.

It's also rather telling that you believe these questions are "pointless" when they could be considered part of roleplaying. You're displaying an inherent bias against the wheel on purely preferential and indeed quite judgemental grounds rather than the mechanical and objective reasons that you initially claimed. You're also being extremely judgmental (and wholly inaccurate, I might add) by assuming that simply because I recognise the value of the separation of these choices that I don't care about the investigate options. In fact, I will always investigate as much as I possibly can, because I value those "pointless" (your words, not mine) questions.

You said it was impossible to show the dialogue via the wheel. I proved it was, and you've subsequently changed your argument.  I suggest you be upfront about your bias and intent rather than engaging in underhanded and misleading behaviour. If, on the other hand, you actually do have some legitimate and reasoned criticism of the dialogue wheel, I'd like to hear it.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 20 février 2013 - 09:27 .

[AllThatJazz]

AmstradHero wrote...

Imrahil_ wrote...
Yes, the sub-hub is a failure.  It shunts all non-relevant questions off to the side.  More specifically, it *identifies* which questions are non-relevant.  The Character wants to ask these questions.  The Player, clearly, by virtue of them being in Investigate, doesn't need to.  Separating these things is, well, wrong.  Just wrong.  That's where I'm coming from.

A tree of 5-7 questions doesn't tell you which things are important & which aren't.  A Wheel clearly indicates which questions are pointless,

Then as I explained before, your complaint isn't intrinsicly with the wheel, this is a mechanical complaint about the conveying the purpose of the lines. From a design point of view, this actually provides the player with MORE information with which to make an intelligent and informed choice about which dialogue choice they should pick.

You're objecting to this because you believe it is promoting metagaming by allowing the player to shortcut the conversation (even though you're not stating it that way). Conversely, this actually allows the player to make an informed choice about what will progress the dialogue and what will not. This is not a failure. It allows the player AND the character, to deliberately choose to investigate everything instead of accidentally progressing the dialogue when they did not intend to.

It's also rather telling that you believe these questions are "pointless" when they could be considered part of roleplaying. You're displaying an inherent bias against the wheel on purely preferential and indeed quite judgemental grounds rather than the mechanical and objective reasons that you initially claimed. You said it was impossible to show the dialogue via the wheel. I proved it was, and you've subsequently changed your argument.  I suggest you be upfront about your bias and intent rather than engaging in underhanded and misleading behaviour.

I fully agree with this. In my most recent playthrough of Origins, I accidentally moved the main Redcliffe quest dialogue onward during (I think) the first conversation with Teagan, when I thought my mage was asking for more context. It was frustrating, both to me the player, since I enjoy experiencing as much of the 'flavour' dialogue as possible; and on behalf of this particular character, who likes having information available to her before making a decision. Reloading a save is possible of course, but annoying - and unnecessary with the dialogue wheel. Allowing me to be aware of which options lead to the next stage of the dialogue helps me RP - if I'm playing a PC who is very direct and unconcerned with details, then I know exactly which options I can safely skip.

The only thing that bothers me about the wheel is the inaccuracy of the paraphrasing - saying something I really didn't mean to say does 'break' that particular conversation. But that isn't an issue with the wheel itself, which I do prefer.

[AllThatJazz]

 I thought there were some good points in the article. And some things I strongly disagreed with.

I like the idea of sending our companions out on missions, or of somehow having them actively engaged in something while the PC isn't around. I did like that in DA2, Aveline was Captain of the Guard and Anders ran a clinic - more of this sort of thing would be welcome.  I agree that a storyline which tries to be both epic and personal would be the ideal - I actually preferred the idea of DA2's more low-key approach, though I didn't think it was executed terribly well. And yes, more locations to explore and more character customisation is always good. Anything that enriches the universe and allows us to create a unique persona within that universe is to be widely encouraged. Story and game integration, also yes please. Make playing a Blood Mage mean something! Have civilians flee from me! Templars attack me! Anything but slitting my wrists in public being completely ignored!

Strong disagreements:

Don't you dare remove the Deep Roads! By all means improve them, give them a wider variety of enemies, more interesting things to find (lost thaigs, hidden lore, long lost treasure, Legion of the Dead outposts, a Broodmother lair, a wandering Rock wraith etc). Make the Deep Roads more dense with activity, rather than long barren stretches of road and tunnel with a few enemies here and there (which I suspect was partly an engine limitation anyway). But the lore of the Deep Roads is fascinating - I love the architecture of them, and the tragic history of how they were lost to the Darkspawn. I love the incredibly powerful and ancient things that can be found down there (like rock wraiths, broodmothers, corrupted lyrium, caves full of massive spiders etc). They should definitely be areas you don't explore until you are a powerful force in the world. But I am NOT a fan of the 'remove it, don't improve it' school of thought, unless it was a really poor idea to begin with. Which doesn't apply to the Deep Roads (imo).

Loghain. Thought he was one of the more compelling of Bioware's antagonists. To the extent that my canon Warden recruited him, had him do the DR and met up with him again briefly in Awakening A 'villain' whose motives and actions I can sympathise with to the extent of actively wanting to save him, is exactly the kind of baddie I love. MORE, please. 'Thunderous face' hardly does him justice.

Open World: Not if it means sacrificing the greater narrative focus. A more open world, with more exploration would be lovely: But Bethesda games continue to bore and and annoy me with the lack of anything terribly interesting happening in their massive world, outside of pretty things to look at, and books and letters to read. And very few characters with any kind of memorable quality. Bioware's strengths are in storytelling (compared to Bethesda, particularly) and compelling characters. I wouldn't want those things diluted to make way for more aimless wandering about.

Light Side/Dark side Counter - I thought they did this better in DA2 anyway, so we're already on the right road there (for me anyway )

Guts and Maturity aka Be More Like The Witcher: Gah! As much as I like TW series, DA needs to be its own game. While there are always lessons to learn, and not only from The Witcher, I don't play games because they are just like other games I've already played. It's the unique qualities of different games that interest me. DA is lighter and more high-fantasy in tone than TW, with its very gritty, European feel. But that's okay. I like both! One thing I would like to see borrowed from is classic dungeon crawlers. My favourite of the DA:O dlc was Golems of Amgarrak. A very challenging dungeon h&s where lack of tactics/strategy would make you extremely dead, a good boss fight at the end and some interesting lore thrown in to flesh out the world. A few high-level, optional things like this would be great fun!

Voiced Protagonist: Eh, I'm ambivalent about this. I certainly don't miss a VP in my Infinity Engine games, or NWN2 (been getting back into playing mods). I won't miss a VP in Project Eternity. But I do miss one, oddly. in Origins - to the extent that I only ever play a female Warden so I can read the dialogue out loud! I guess I think that a VP suits a cinematic style with lots and lots of cutscenes, whereas a mute protagonist feels (to me) passive and disconnected from the world. I do understand the opposing pov, though, that it makes the character feel less like it belongs to you :/ I would like to see much more accurate paraphrasing, less auto dialogue, more dialogue 'tones' in conversation, and no dominant personality.  Personally, I thought Nicholas Boulton and Jo Wyatt were both very good. Received Pronunciation is a little too 'posh' for my tastes, however. 

Tl; Dr? Tough! I spent ages on this bloody thing! It's not that boring!

[SeismicGravy]

"what're y'all doin' here, Darkspawn? Y'all sure don't b'long here. Git! Dunt make me go buckwild on yer butt!"

Yes, yes i did dammit!