184 réponses à ce sujet

[Knight of Dane]

AlanC9 wrote...

Knight of Dane wrote...
I think imports can be done in a meaningful way. Mass Effect already did that with the Genophage Arc in the third game. Basically there er a few different outcomes that in characterization and intention vary, but less so in the actual execution.

The same missions happen, but different outcomes are acheiveable wether or not you kept a cure sample from the second game and which Krogan leader was alive.

For me that is a fine execution.

But this only worked because the pre-ME3 choices have very limited consequences; do you have Mealon's data, and are Wrex and Mordin alive?

It can still result in different war assests and wether or not the Krogan survive as a species.

It's a whole lot better than Alistair and Zevran showing up just because.

[AlanC9]

Knight of Dane wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

But this only worked because the pre-ME3 choices have very limited consequences; do you have Mealon's data, and are Wrex and Mordin alive?

It can still result in different war assests and wether or not the Krogan survive as a species.

Right. But big things like whether or not the krogan survive as a species are the problem with save imports.

[Cainhurst Crow]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But if that's true, I suggest it would then also improve future games to discard that established canon as soon as each game is done, and then construct an entirely new canon for each subsequent game - a canon that will support the specific sort of narrative they want in that game.

So, if they wanted to tell a story based on the on-going mage-templar conflict arising from the events of DA2, they can.  But then, for the next game, they could decide that the events of DA2 didn't happen and instead have no on-going mage-templar conflict, and instead having them work together to fend off a full-scale Qunari invasion (or something).

The point is, if the restrictions imposed by the save imports are limiting in a negative way, then the restrictions imposed by some other game's canon should also be limiting in a negative way.

Ick. I like my game worlds to have a coherent history, not one that resets every game.

Isn't that a little paradoxical?

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

Ick. I like my game worlds to have a coherent history, not one that resets every game.

Do you not enjoy the first game in a series? Because that one has, effectively, reset its history. If it's okay then, why isn't it always okay?

[Realmzmaster]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Ick. I like my game worlds to have a coherent history, not one that resets every game.

Do you not enjoy the first game in a series? Because that one has, effectively, reset its history. If it's okay then, why isn't it always okay?

The first game in the series sets the history. To reset something means that it was already set in the first place and was changed so now it needs to go back to the original state.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 30 mai 2013 - 06:15 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Not so. The first game does not reset, but establish the history. There was nothing there to reset before the first game.

So then each new game establishes a new history.  I still fail to see the problem.

[Sylvius the Mad]

EntropicAngel wrote...

They can't establish a new history if they're within the same universe, without "breaking coherency" as he puts it.

This may be a place where your "bubble universes" theory conflicts with the way we're thinking about it.

So don't think about it that way.

Since you're willing to play and enjoy games wherein you have no history aside from that given to you by the developers (the first game in a series), then any difficulty doing that with subsequent games is purely the result of you insisting that there's some necessary relationship between those two realities.

[MerinTB]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
While I defer to you on matters of writing, I really don't feel your explanation gives justice to the obstacle. This isn't a scenario that a writer must accomodate to... it is an ever growing web of restrictions, where a writer may often find themselves looking myopically at the landmines they want to avoid stepping on to just complete the task rather than telling the best story they can tell.

Well, I didn't say everyone would like it.  Nor that it is easy.  I did initially say that it depends on the writer.

But for a video game, where the consumer is a player and expected to have input, even if only surfacely, on the story, the more control you give to the player, the more gamelike you make the game if you will, the less control you, the writer, have on the story.

Would it be easier for writers to have carte blanche without concern for what the players do?  For many, yes.

This is a game, however, and if the writers are more concerned with their story and their creativity than the game and the players, then writing for a game is probably not the right field for them.

----

Just putting it out there - I prefer creating my own stuff and having full control, but would find it enjoyably challenging to be put into the place of a writer having to deal with the potential continuity choices of a previous game. 

Modifié par MerinTB, 30 mai 2013 - 07:45 .

[MerinTB]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
So don't think about it that way.

Since you're willing to play and enjoy games wherein you have no history aside from that given to you by the developers (the first game in a series), then any difficulty doing that with subsequent games is purely the result of you insisting that there's some necessary relationship between those two realities.

Seeing it as a coherent universe can give greater enjoyment and context.

And.... that's why a lot of players (not all, don't know about most, but a good portion) enjoy their play continuity from game to game.  A sense of consistency, based on their choices.

There, I squared the circle... or something. :innocent:

Modifié par MerinTB, 30 mai 2013 - 07:44 .

[Naitaka]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

So don't think about it that way.

Since you're willing to play and enjoy games wherein you have no history aside from that given to you by the developers (the first game in a series), then any difficulty doing that with subsequent games is purely the result of you insisting that there's some necessary relationship between those two realities.

Seeing it as a coherent universe can give greater enjoyment and context.

I didn't start up ME3 and say, "wait, where am I? What is this? Who are these females with tentacles on their heads?" Because I assumed a coherent universe, I could make assumptions on what Asari would look like, or Turians or the Citadel.

I didn't start up DA ][ and ask what an elf was, or more to the point of this discussion, what happened that we were running from Lothering, what exactly a blight was, what the darkspawn were, etc. Assuming world coherency removes the need to ask these questions.

None of the examples you gave require having save import to work though. In fact, take for example, Baldur's Gate 2, importing your game carries none of your decisions over and people were just fine with it back then. Even in DA2, they've retconned so much of the story to their official cannon, you could have argued that little of what you did made a noticable difference even with save import anyway.

[Naitaka]

EntropicAngel wrote...

I'm not talking about save imports there. I'm talking about the thing that CAUSED save imports: the desire for a consistent, "coherent" world. Save imports increase that consistency.

Yah, but whether Warden sacrificed himself or whether the OGB was concieved changes nothing about the definition of an Elf or what the Blight and the Darkspawns are. I can see how if DA:I treated the Blight as if it had never happened would have been confusing, but from what I've read in this thread it seems most people already the fact that the sequel would distance itself from the prior entries in the series as much as possible in DA universe already. (Different MC, different location, time period) And with what Bioware did with Leliana and Zevran in DA2 you have people whoose experience runs contrary to what they see in the sequel already and really isn't much different from the type of "what if" scenario some people were describing and I don't feel that it would completely throw internal consistency out of the window.

Modifié par Naitaka, 30 mai 2013 - 08:49 .

[Knight of Dane]

AlanC9 wrote...

Knight of Dane wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

But this only worked because the pre-ME3 choices have very limited consequences; do you have Mealon's data, and are Wrex and Mordin alive?

It can still result in different war assests and wether or not the Krogan survive as a species.

Right. But big things like whether or not the krogan survive as a species are the problem with save imports.

Why?

[Sylvius the Mad]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Seeing it as a coherent universe can give greater enjoyment and context.

But if that were necessary, then you wouldn't have enjoyed the first game.  And you said you did.

Yes, this might increase your enjoyment.  But now that we've established that this increase is limited (since you do still, to some degree, enjoy first games even without this continuity), we can judge whether the cost (restricting the writers) is worth the benefit.

Everything is a cost/benefit analysis.  But we need to isolate the costs and benefits before we do the analysis.

Also, note, when I asked the question, I didn't presuppose that the writers would rather not have to worry about save imports.  I can imagine a writer actually preferring to work with the save imports.  The added structure might make his job easier (I certainly find that when I do any writing professionally), and he might actually enjoy being able to dig deeper into multiple what-if scenarios rather than just picking one and throwing the rest away.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 30 mai 2013 - 10:15 .

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
But if that's true, I suggest it would then also improve future games to discard that established canon as soon as each game is done, and then construct an entirely new canon for each subsequent game - a canon that will support the specific sort of narrative they want in that game.

So, if they wanted to tell a story based on the on-going mage-templar conflict arising from the events of DA2, they can.  But then, for the next game, they could decide that the events of DA2 didn't happen and instead have no on-going mage-templar conflict, and instead having them work together to fend off a full-scale Qunari invasion (or something).

The point is, if the restrictions imposed by the save imports are limiting in a negative way, then the restrictions imposed by some other game's canon should also be limiting in a negative way.

I think a non-linear timeline like that would be too confusing. It also robs the players of a sense of continuity. 

[AlanC9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

Seeing it as a coherent universe can give greater enjoyment and context.

But if that were necessary, then you wouldn't have enjoyed the first game.  And you said you did.

Huh? The first game in a setting is also in a coherent universe.... unless it contradicts itself somehow, but I don't recall DA:O doing that

Modifié par AlanC9, 30 mai 2013 - 11:23 .

[CaptainBlackGold]

Maybe the problem here is the kind of choices that the writers give us in the first place? For example, DAO had the possibility of creating the OGB - but also the possibility to not create the OGB. Because of save imports, as Jimmy rightly says, there can be no resolution to who the OGB is, what it might do and the implications for Thedas because some people made it happen and others did not.

So maybe the answer is not to allow the player to make those kinds of decisions in the first place - to have an outline of where they want the story to go and make sure that the decisions we make won't affect that end game?

Personally, I found the whole thing with Morrigan fascinating and wanted a resolution. Instead, she falls through a mirror. I hate the fact that we will never know anything about the OGB (unless it is in a comic or novel) because different people made different decisions that make it impossible to resolve the issue.

So, I am with Jimmy on this one; either make the choices such that they cannot affect future games, or just retcon the entire world the way they want. As I have said before, I have so many different play-throughs that I have no established canon anyways - and am amazed that so many people seem to only have one that they insist on importing.

[Il Divo]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

Seeing it as a coherent universe can give greater enjoyment and context.

But if that were necessary, then you wouldn't have enjoyed the first game.  And you said you did.

Yes, this might increase your enjoyment.  But now that we've established that this increase is limited (since you do still, to some degree, enjoy first games even without this continuity), we can judge whether the cost (restricting the writers) is worth the benefit.

As Alan points out, who said there's a lack of continuity? True, there's no game prior to Dragon Age: Origins to compare to, but throughout the experience the writers are still building/maintaining a coherent setting. I enjoy the end game, for example, because it's built on the continuity/lore established at the start.

What you're suggesting sounds eerily similar to the super hero universe, where retcons/rewrites/what if scenarios are fairly common.  

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

Seeing it as a coherent universe can give greater enjoyment and context.

But if that were necessary, then you wouldn't have enjoyed the first game.  And you said you did.

Huh? The first game in a setting is also in a coherent universe.... unless it contradicts itself somehow, but I don't recall DA:O doing that

If that's your standard of coherence, then any internally consistent game meets it, even sequels that retcon a brand new canon.

DA2 could be coherent, and DAO could be coherent, and DA3 could be coherent, but DAO and DA2 and DA3 together would not be.

That's my point.  Any one game can work, even if they don't all work together.