11 réponses à ce sujet

[Flamingdropbear]

-Been replaying DAO and DA2 and while I've been having fun there are certain things in the games that pull me out of tne gaming experience faster than a greased nug. Splitting them into three sections

Gameplay

Insurmountable half metre walls- Hawke can jump 4 metres in the air with evade or pounce, but can't scrample over a small pile of rubble? At least make the barriers look like barriers.
Battle oblivious bystanders- in the Orzammar commons I got attacked and my mage froze a mob of guys, and three people shopping, who completely ingnored the inconvince of being encased in ice. I know this was mentioned in this panel at PAX east, please do something about it (even if it is just making sure battles happen in places without bystanders). It also includes them ignoring piles of dead bodies littering the streets for the rest of the game. Can't they hire a cleaner?
Why can't I use it- I have the stats, so why can't I use the sword of sharpness cause I'm a rogue.
Over use of a good idea- the wave combat in DA2 was a good idea, but like chocolate icecream you can over do it far to easily

Plot
Knowing the unknownable - How the hell did Hawke know where to take all the bits of garbage in fetch quests? How did she know what was important and not just vendor trash? If your making these quests again just shove a note on the Chanters board.
Not Knowing the known - While I understand that the games have to be made with the understanding that the people playing may have not played a DA game before, when introducinng these things try and make the protagonist not seem like an ignorant buffon. ME handled it well with the Proteans, Shepard had half said half the details ( what I was taught at school) and Anderson filled in some more.

Graphics
The Hands - by the Ancestors the hands in both DA games were either action figure grips, unmoving and in the uncanny valley, out of place on the body (Bethany had the hands of a 59 year old washer woman on the body of a teenager)
The Hips - Lady Hawke runs like she's had her hips broken, didn't notice this unlit someone metioned it, but now cannot think about anything else when i see her run.
The Stone- Many things bugged me about the reuse of cave in DA2, but the worst was having to see the insult to geolgist everywhere that was the rock types mash together with no care to then processes that shoukld have  put them there. All the boulders and rubble was metamorphic as was the exterior of Sundermount , but the walls of the caves inside were erroded sandstone, stalacties with the same sedimentary layers as the surrounding rock when their formation processes is entirely different and don't get me started on the lava flows. Sorry the dwarf in me, as well as the geologist, gets picky about that

Modifié par Flamingdropbear, 08 avril 2013 - 06:45 .

[Allan Schumacher]

EntropicAngel wrote...

I've come to the conclusion that "immersion" is ultimately a cinematic term.

And being cinematic, as well as by it's definition, it's unrelated to role-playing (if not the antithesis).

Thus, I really don't care about "immersion" all that much in a series I'm looking to for role-playing.

I find immersion to be that rather vagueish feeling that isn't really well defined, by which people will fall back on if something seems off but they can't quite put their finger on it.

When I see most people talk about it, I kind of equate to the idea of suspension of disbelief.  I also see the idea of those little details that help "enhance immersion."  Things you might not have even realized were there, but if removed would come across as taking away from the situation, even if you aren't able to describe why.


Take a good game, and add those little details, and you start making it a great game.  Of course, a bad game with all the little details just makes people wonder why you wasted your time on those little details when the rest of the game is so awful!

[Allan Schumacher]

Indeed.

But just thinking about it, though--immersion is basically how much the game is pulling ME into it. and for role-playing, that's a problem--because I'M not in the game, my character is.

Thus, if the game is pulling ME in, convincing ME to react as I would, as opposed to my character...mightn't that be considered a problem for role-playing?

As the active controller of the character, as well as a perpetual observer, I don't really buy in to the idea of complete separation of game player and game character.

As EntropicAngel, you may not feel any pity for an NPC, and it's perfectly fine for you to conclude that your character does feel pity for NPC. However, inextricably when you conclude "this PC will feel pity for the NPC," it is impossible to completely disassociate EntropicAngel from the guiding influence that determines how the PC will display such pity (which might even be in a way that EntropicAngel would not normally display pity as well). Unless the player character becomes autonomous and no longer dependent on your input, I do not believe that this separation will ever be 100%


As a game player, you are a constant observer. If the game setting is no longer playing out in a way that you think is appropriate for the character you have created, I could argue this breaks "immersion" for you (it's part of the nebulous meaning of immersion however. Ironically this is probably an argument for why "immersion" isn't a very good word.

If you're playing a game and you conclude an NPC is someone that your PC would not like, and the only viable responses by your PC are some form of "I think your awesome" and to support the NPC, I think this would undermine your suspension of disbelief and frustrate and disappoint you. Or do you disagree?

[Allan Schumacher]

I think it's interesting how different people "roleplay."

I usually try to put "myself" in the role with whatever traits I have decided. I feel a need to imagine that it's myself with those traits (those traits may not be traits I actually possess. In fact, rarely have I been able to manipulate the Force in real life!), and I try to imagine what the emotional context of what "I" am feeling when events happen.

I draw upon my personal experiences to try to understand how that emotion must feel, sometimes I can come up with something fine (it's not hard for me to feel sorrow for the loss of my sibling in DA2, for example), and other times I just need to make my best guess.

It works for me as it helps my emotional connection to the game, and any game that can illicit genuine emotional responses out of me (for in game reasons) are typically games I hold in high regard (looking at you The Walking Dead).

[Allan Schumacher]

And does that force comment mean you played the Old Republic, or did you play the PnP Star Wars RPG??

A nod to when I started playing this way, which was with KOTOR. (I have played TOR, though)

[Allan Schumacher]

Being a writer, I don't exactly put myself in the place of my character as I'm crafting them and their dialog and the world around them.

As a writer, how do you determine an appropriate reaction for a character that you are writing?

[Allan Schumacher]

I must also confess that how you roleplay is exaclty how I though all roleplaying was suppose to work Alan.

I find the term roleplaying is also quite nebulous and open to interpretation, and hence tend to try to prevent discussions from turning into overt definitions as to "what it means to roleplay" since I find they tend to follow a similar path.

I don't have much issue of someone says what they feel roleplaying is or what is important about it for them. It's more when someone comes along and tells other people they are doing it wrong or that they should use a different word.

[Allan Schumacher]

Take into account the character's traits and developments up until that point, and take an educated guess at what such a character would do.

What influences the educated guess? What makes a guess educated rather than random?

[Allan Schumacher]

RPG rules are abstractions and trying to equate them to our physical world is always going to run into snags.

In an RPG, a player that is "immune to critical hits" can still die in combat, so any assertion that a player that is "immune to critical hits cannot be killed in combat" is easily shown to be false.

Stating that Kevlar Armor makes you immune to deadly hits on your torso isn't actually correct either (and is easily shown to be false in reality as well), but then it goes back to the idea that RPG game rules are just an abstract model.

Getting caught up in the semantics of it will just lead to continued talking in circles.

[Allan Schumacher]

SinerAthin wrote...

I wanna see you try to stab through a Kevlar vest xD

There have been Darwin Awards given out to people testing out how knife proof kevlar vests are.

[Allan Schumacher]

Rawgrim wrote...

I belive the game-rules say that a critical hit is a hit to a vital area of the body. Hence the extra damage.

Getting slashed across the arm is different than getting slashed across the throat.  But then, how does one quantify in terms of "Hit points" what it means to get slashed across the arm compared to the throat?  Again, it's a semantics argument.  Immunity to criticals implies some level of protection to the attacks that are typically more vulnerable.

It's a reflection of the abstraction of RPG rules, of which there is a lot more things than this that could really make us go "Hmmmmm" if we want to try to apply real life experiences to it.

[Allan Schumacher]

And here you equate immersion with "suspension of disbelief"

I also typically equate immersion with suspension of disbelief.

Complain that there is no DAO goodness, that you were expecting DAO II that this isn't the style you like. But do not say "it breaks my immersion". There is no one breaking your immersion but yourself.

Eh, we facilitate the immersion breakage by providing an experience he wasn't expecting. If someone isn't enjoying things, they're less likely to get immersed in it.

Like I said, I consider immersion to be a rather nebulous term. What it means to an individual may very well be specific to that individual.