nightscrawl wrote...
As far as story continuity is concerned, how do you present the customization of a player's Warden without interrupting the flow of the narrative by forcing the player into the CC screen, or totally ruining the surprise by having the player make their Warden at the same time they make their DA3 PC? Also, there needs to be a credible reason for either of those people to appear in DA3, and it needs to be generic enough that it applies to most people's Wardens and/or Hawkes. A dwarf commoner Warden (probably) is not going to have the same motivations and desires as a mage Warden or a Dalish Warden. The cameo also cannot be too significant since there is a chance that the player's Warden could be dead, so there needs to be alternate content for those players, like was the case with Fool's Gold/Finding Nathaniel.
And all of this is before the fact that some players will be upset if their Warden or Hawke is not shown with their LI.
I know it just seems like I am being negative or shooting down the desire of those who really want a Warden or Hawke cameo, but I don't mean it that way. I am trying to be realistic about the considerations that the devs have to keep in mind for reasons to do or not do something like this. It has a great chance to upset a great many people if they don't do it right. As they said at PAX, they would want to "do it right, or not at all."
Good points all. I'll try to answer what I'd want and expect out of it and how I look at that in as short a manner as I can. (again, debated for days about this a few months ago, so I don't want to debate everybody on the other side)
Personally, I'd put the cc up front, and I'd even leave a slight blurb on the box to advertise the fact that DA3:I does import your former decisions, including your former protagonists. The surprise of how, why, and where you'll see your particular Warden and Hawke in any given playthrough would still be intact. I don't think their appearance in toto needs to be a complete surprise, just because of the issues you bring up. If you put the cc in the middle of the scene, you're taking the player out of the moment and out of their current character, which you don't want to do. So make it known and put the cc right up front during game import.
I agree they need reasons to be there. That's not really a difficult thing though. If you've got an international war going on and the Hero of Ferelden is traipsing around somewhere, I'd be shocked if they weren't involved, whether they wanted to be or not, regardless of their station. So take whatever their status is and incorporate that into different versions of their story beat (which needs to be a main story beat, the equivalent of a major story mission). If they're the monarch of Ferelden, then that's how they're represented in the scene, if they're with the dwarves, then that's how they come in, with the Dalish, then that. Give them different entourages, even. If they're with Morrigan, then they show up with Morrigan, reference the OGB. If they're the 'disappeared off into the sunset' epilogue version, then you have a stock scenario that gets them wrapped up in whatever's going on. If they're dead, you reference them and instead have the alternate Orlesian Warden from DA:A. Hawke's entire game was a lead-up to this war, so again, I'd be shocked if they weren't involved.
And yes, have the LIs too.
There's a couple of ways to handle the variance. You can either have a single scenario with multiple starting points in a set environment at a set point in the story, which is more expensive I think, or you can have the Warden incorporated into pre-existing scenes (where the LIs would show up anyway, with or without the Warden) dealing with the dwarves, the Dalish, a particular mage faction, Ferelden's monarchy, or Morrigan, all of which I expect to be there whether we see the Warden or not. I think that's slightly more complex but also more cost effective. It also gets you more replay bang for your buck. Do the same thing for Hawke, only it's easier because there are less variables. There are a lot of dialogue variables, but not so much more than you'd expect in any other conversation concerning the characters in the game, not so much as to be cost prohibitive anyway, I think.
I do think it needs to be very significant, at least equivalent to Leliana's appearances in DA2 or Grunt's in ME3 (for instance), but not so huge as to be cost prohibitive, considering you need four accents (though that could potentially be the same two actors if necessary). So in this way, the scenes would not be alternate side content, because some version of the Warden (or the Orlesian stand-in) and some version of Hawke would be involved in everybody's game, whether you even played DA:O and/or DA2 or not. So it's not like Nathaniel where it exists or it doesn't. There's just a lot of variation in what the appearances would be and at what point in the game they'd take place. So it's more expensive than a typical cameo, but it's also a more relevant event in the story, so it justifies the cost.
There's also the expense of the cc for dwarves and elves, which otherwise wouldn't exist since DA3:I is human only. I see that as more of an investment for the future, though, and if they have some version of mp like they've hinted, they'd have that anyway.
They can do it right, and they should. It's just a question now of if they think the payoff justifies the expense. I think it does. It ties the whole story together a lot more cohesively across the series. It provides a ton of replay value. It's a big giant 'ooh, ahh' moment to see the Warden in action in the modern style with the modern engine. It adds that much to immersion and suspension of disbelief to see the world continuing and advancing like it logically should, rather than leaving huge hanging threads out there that people are just too afraid to touch. I think it's something they really should do.
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