184 réponses à ce sujet

[Bleachrude]

Then the sequels shouldn't actually be called Dragon Age at all...

When people see a 2 or 3 attached to a title, they expect that the background of the world to be the same as what was in the original title...

[Nightdragon8]

hey guys why dont you accutly ASK THE WRITERS of this game what they want insted of making up your own stuff...

And sense everyone else is doing it.
me personally I would consider it a challenge and in fact would be FUN to have to deal with all of the problems associated with it.

[Fast Jimmy]

Nightdragon8 wrote...

hey guys why dont you accutly ASK THE WRITERS of this game what they want insted of making up your own stuff...

And sense everyone else is doing it.
me personally I would consider it a challenge and in fact would be FUN to have to deal with all of the problems associated with it.

How would you propose asking the writers, aside from putting a post on the company's forum, asking them if they have a preference?

And please don't say Twitter. Because that would be the most likely way to get a response... which is an asinine situation. 

[Wozearly]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

The problem is, instead, the fact that previous stories cannot be continued on with the Save Import. Ironic, I know, but it is true. Because a number of people could be on the throne of Ferelden, it will never matter who is on the throne. That is to say, it will not be different enough to tell a different story. Allistair on the throne means the same for the country as Anora or the Warden or any combination of the three.

Instead of one choice being taken as canon and advancing the story of Ferelden, ALL choices are carried forward, meaning the world is roughly the exact same, regardless who is on the throne.

Which is why I adopt the view of save imports being good if;

a) The main protagonist is going to continue through each game story, and each game story *is* a direct continuation of what has gone before, so bringing the imports across maintains continuity (e.g. Mass Effect)

and/or

The options for differences are either known in advance to be irrelevant to the next story, so imports around those are are pure flavour (e.g. we won't be in Ferelden ever again, so it doesn't matter who rules it)

with arguably...

c) If you're going to try to avoid the flaw you've raised about "Anything imported must therefore be irrelevant in the new game", then major divergent paths from previous choices should be reconnected with the new storyline in the early stages of the new game so that the disparity can be recognised and resolved, with one path being a default for those who didn't play the previous game.

You could even call these divergent beginnings "Origins", and they could let you understand a bit more about your character's past, why they are where they are, what things from their past might come back to haunt them and...no, wait, that would be a terrible idea, wouldn't it. No-one would ever rate a game with something like that in it.

Modifié par Wozearly, 31 mai 2013 - 06:08 .

[milena87]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

milena87 wrote...

Yes, I believe that getting rid of the import feature and setting a canon could improve the game.

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.

Hmm, you make an interesting point, but I think that by ignoring the previous games completely we just end up with what some of us are saying we'd like to avoid: a world not evolving, a world that doesn't build on some of the things that might have happened.

I vastly prefer to see a set of possible choices made canon, in order to build on them and really see them influencing and changing the world of Thedas.

[Sjpelke]

Dragon Age takes place in a certain period of time that is set. It's an era in the world of Thedas.

The first game introduced the races of Thedas living there at the time and the origins explained their cultures and backgrounds/history.

DA2 is set up completely different, arching a larger period in that era but was situated in one town while DA1 took place in a province.

Things that happened in both games which should be imported/reckognized/concluded in the next installment, because save import will still be there has been stated by BW, could differ from one player to the next as every player has his preference in the story. Or character that appeals to him more for that matter and wants to know what happened to him/her.

The moment safe import is there the difficulty/challenge for the writers is what to use and how to implement it. Major things like the mage/templar war cannot be ignored because it has to much impact on Thedas as a whole. Darkspawn not so much as their appearance depends on finding an old god which might not happen in some time to come if not written .

Wrapping things up in the game that do not need to be adressed to again story wise would be the way to go here. The moment things are left hanging it raises questions and I for one think that it will be 'taken care off' in the next game or expansion or dlc.

Import could work very well depending on what and how it will be imported.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I like world-changing choices. I'm still disappointed I couldn't even try to save the genophage cure in ME.

[KotorEffect3]

The save import feature is one of my favorite things about bioware games. It is cool to see the game acknowledge what I did in the previous game.

[Wozearly]

KotorEffect3 wrote...

The save import feature is one of my favorite things about bioware games. It is cool to see the game acknowledge what I did in the previous game.

Oh, I agree. But that's not really how it translated into DA2.

The acknowledgement effectively modified the cameo returns of Leliana, Alistair and Zevran to include an appropriate comment about the Warden or a king-related decision, particularly if the Warden had been an LI. Know what? Kinda cool. Happy to have that in there rather than not, if there were no plans to revisit those characters or those places ever again.

But on the other side of the coin, it retconned the death of Anders (okay, major plot character, I can sympathise, but...), Leliana (no sympathy at all) and Zevran (no sympathy at all, although I concede that his resurrection was, apparently, bugged...but who can tell?) to allow for their cameos irrespective of your past choices.

Rather than acknowlegding what I did in the previous game, the import rewrote my decisions to effectively tell me that I shouldn't have killed my companions / let them die, so they're now alive again. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb in saying that the way imports were handled in DA2 is easily the worst implementation of this Bioware has done to date.

Now if the writers had added 30 seconds to the cameos to explain why the dead seemed so ready and willing to come back to life where appropriate, I wouldn't have minded as much. But to ignore this entirely gives the finger to my decisions because they "weren't canon", while on the other hand saying "there is no canon really, its more about your choices".

Picking and choosing whether to import or retcon player decisions from game to game isn't going to inspire any love for the save import feature.

Modifié par Wozearly, 01 juin 2013 - 09:56 .

[9TailsFox]

Bleachrude wrote...

Then the sequels shouldn't actually be called Dragon Age at all...

When people see a 2 or 3 attached to a title, they expect that the background of the world to be the same as what was in the original title...

I

[Fast Jimmy]

Rather than acknowlegding what I did in the previous game, the import rewrote my decisions to effectively tell me that I shouldn't have killed my companions / let them die, so they're now alive again. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb in saying that the way imports were handled in DA2 is easily the worst implementation of this Bioware has done to date.

I would wonder if you played ME3 then, where everyone who could be killed had a clone waiting in the wings... in the case of the Rachni Queen choice, there was LITERALLY a clone involved.

[Sir JK]

I was dwelling a bit on this matter. While it's inevitable that the save import puts some limitations on writing, I wonder if it isn't more of a challange than a restriction. Yes, world altering choices is obviously practically impossible to accomodate for. You cannot really effectively follow up on a choice that takes the world in two completely opposite directions.

But... is that really a problem? Or rather: Does the choices have to be world altering?

The expectation that choices made ingame should have world altering effects I feel has two glaring problems.
The first one is that it establishes that big sweeping changes are the result of one singular person making a decision. That history and the entire development boils down to a handful of significant people (to whom our characters belong). Ultimately, I feel, is that this lessens the importance of the conflicts. What does it matter that thousands of people are affected by the mage-templar war really, when it just serves as backdrop to our personal decisions. All the suffering, animosity and emotion only serve as backdrop to help us take a stance. And the choice we take will inevitably be the correct one that will resolve the conflict in the manner of our choosing (even if not to our full satisfaction). That approach, I think, cheapens the underlying conflict.

The second issue is that if focus is on consequence, then it cheapens the choice itself. When the choice is made our characters knows nothing of what will happen down the line. The important bit is why they make the choices they do, not what it leads to. So what if it does not make the world a perfect utopia after a save import, that's not important to the choice itself. Is it? Does any character do the dark ritual because they're curious what kind of plot it will lead to later in the sequels? Should not focus be on the choice itself, no matter what it leads to?

Now, don't get me wrong. I do think they should be followed up on. I love to see what my past character's choices and actions have for effect and how they influence current events. But it's influence, not determine. No matter who ends up being king of Orzammar, Orzammar will still be Orzammar. The nobles will still cling to the assembly and their old rights. The casteless will still be at the rock-bottom. They might have it slightly better under Bhelen, but it does not really neccessarily completely alter Orzammar and make it a communist commune, now does it?
No matter whether one chose Alistair or Anora (or both), Ferelden's domestic politics is still going to be dominated by the Bannorn. One might be slightly more deft at hand when it comes to dealing with them but it won't really change Ferelden forever, now will it?

This is not nearly as limiting as expecting every (or just the major ones) choice to be world altering. If choices have an effect, alters the details a bit, but ultimately the world goes along the same path as the writers want it to anyways then save imports is not nearly as prohibitive for writers as one could otherwise imagine.
It's still a challenge to pull it off satisfactory, one the writers may or may not enjoy entirely. But I don't imagine it controls where to take the plot any more than any other setting detail.
As long as we're all well expecting that out choices won't determine whether the wall is blue or orange they're as free to write the story as they please, are they not?

Hopefully it's in a manner we all enjoy. Which is the important bit.

[Fast Jimmy]

Sir JK wrote...

I was dwelling a bit on this matter. While it's inevitable that the save import puts some limitations on writing, I wonder if it isn't more of a challange than a restriction. Yes, world altering choices is obviously practically impossible to accomodate for. You cannot really effectively follow up on a choice that takes the world in two completely opposite directions.

But... is that really a problem? Or rather: Does the choices have to be world altering?

I would say the choices presented in DA:O were world altering. You had the option to destroy or preserve magical artifacts that could change the course of history. You placed individuals on thrones of entire nations. You can either save or eradicate entire populations.

I don't know how you can GET more world changing than that without resorting to some reality-changing magic button you can press (a la ME3's endings, which change the nature of the galaxy with one decision).

The expectation that choices made ingame should have world altering effects I feel has two glaring problems.
The first one is that it establishes that big sweeping changes are the result of one singular person making a decision. That history and the entire development boils down to a handful of significant people (to whom our characters belong). Ultimately, I feel, is that this lessens the importance of the conflicts. What does it matter that thousands of people are affected by the mage-templar war really, when it just serves as backdrop to our personal decisions. All the suffering, animosity and emotion only serve as backdrop to help us take a stance. And the choice we take will inevitably be the correct one that will resolve the conflict in the manner of our choosing (even if not to our full satisfaction). That approach, I think, cheapens the underlying conflict.

But this is a problem with the Save Import... no matter what side we chose in the upcoming Mage/Templar War, things will work out in one way or another. This is because you can't have continuity where the side who wins is decided by the player and then carry that consequnce into future games.

I'd argue that if there were no Save import, there could be many different outcomes and endings, depending on who you side with and what choices you make. Maybe you could play the game where war really DOES tear Thedas apart and leaves it as a husk of a land, with chaos and destruction everywhere. Maybe you can make the choices to resolve things peacefully and make rainbows, unicorns and sunshine beam down from the heavens. Then the writers could set up the next game with either one of the outcomes you could get, or a different set of outcomes (that make sense within the narrative) altogether.

Instead, with the Save Import, every choice you make is going to result in the same ending. THAT, in my eyes, cheapens choices.

The second issue is that if focus is on consequence, then it cheapens the choice itself. When the choice is made our characters knows nothing of what will happen down the line. The important bit is why they make the choices they do, not what it leads to. So what if it does not make the world a perfect utopia after a save import, that's not important to the choice itself. Is it? Does any character do the dark ritual because they're curious what kind of plot it will lead to later in the sequels? Should not focus be on the choice itself, no matter what it leads to?

Then why do people constatnly replay DA:O and DA2 to "get their perfect playthrough" ready? They aren't neccessarily chasing a certain outcome or consequence, but they DO want to see the consequences of a certain string of choices and scenarios. 

If you want to try and prevent meta-gaming because of how a choice plays out, that isn't a problem with the Save Import or without... it happens with every game where Choice and Consequence are in play. Just look at the number of people who played DA:O on subsequent playthroughs and chose Bhelen every time because Harrowmont turned out to have a "bad" epilogue. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I do think they should be followed up on. I love to see what my past character's choices and actions have for effect and how they influence current events. But it's influence, not determine. No matter who ends up being king of Orzammar, Orzammar will still be Orzammar. The nobles will still cling to the assembly and their old rights. The casteless will still be at the rock-bottom. They might have it slightly better under Bhelen, but it does not really neccessarily completely alter Orzammar and make it a communist commune, now does it?

Actually, Bhelen disbands the Assembly and its nobles and lives as a dictator. And he gives basically all rights to the casteless. Which would mean the nobility don't really have all that much more power than the Casteless anymore. Granted, that's because all live under Bhelen's cruel thumb, but... it is a seriously different Orzammar than Harrowmont, who could lead a charge of golems to wipe out every member of the casteless in Dust Town, leaving no survivors.

That's what was great about the epilogue slides of DA:O - they accounted for lots of different choices and variables. And none of those epilogues carried over into DA2 (the slides were declared "non-canon."). Why couldn't DA3 just go this route - allowing huge changes with huge consequences and variables, have an ending that touches on these choices... and then wipes the slate clean with the next game? I really don't see what the value of having the Save Imports is, when it encourages plot railroading to prevent rocking the boat for future stories.

No matter whether one chose Alistair or Anora (or both), Ferelden's domestic politics is still going to be dominated by the Bannorn. One might be slightly more deft at hand when it comes to dealing with them but it won't really change Ferelden forever, now will it?

We don't know. Mostly because the DA games have run away from every previous story they brought up like it had leporosy.

As I brought up earlier, there could be a really cool story where Allistair is king and Anora is locked in the Tower, where Allistair supports the Mages in DA3, but Anora secretly plots to overthrow him and pledges her support to the Templars. But this is a story that can't be told with the imports. Nor is a story about Allistair and Anora being married and actually growing to love each other and rule Ferelden wisely... nor one where Anora abhors Allistair and the prince of the throne is actually a bastard of Nathaniel Howe or something.

Point being... each game is going to ignore every story and choice made in the previous games with the Save Import. Every character you liked, every location you visited, every good idea for a continuation of a story... they are all gone. You won't be seeing them again. Except as a cameo or codex entry or side quest. That, to me, is a shameful thing to do to a storyline that people become invested in. 

This is not nearly as limiting as expecting every (or just the major ones) choice to be world altering. If choices have an effect, alters the details a bit, but ultimately the world goes along the same path as the writers want it to anyways then save imports is not nearly as prohibitive for writers as one could otherwise imagine.
It's still a challenge to pull it off satisfactory, one the writers may or may not enjoy entirely. But I don't imagine it controls where to take the plot any more than any other setting detail.
As long as we're all well expecting that out choices won't determine whether the wall is blue or orange they're as free to write the story as they please, are they not?

Hopefully it's in a manner we all enjoy. Which is the important bit.

Hopefully it is something we all enjoy, yes. Maybe they will strip the import choices down to a small number of world-shaping events that they could create lots of custom content for and leave things like old characters, romances, side quests and small details aside. 

But even if it were to work like that, it still presents the restriction that every game must end in the same exact spot, regardless of any actions or choices. 

For DA:O, that was simply as broad as "the Archdemon was slain and the Blight was ended." It had variables for if your character was alive, if the Dark Ritual was done, which Warden you had going with you in the fight at Denerim, if you married someone, who you made king/queen, if you ran off in the sunset with their LI and a host of other factors that can affect your ending.

For DA2, it was EXTREMELY defined. Anders blew up the Chantry, despite any actions you took to help or hinder him. Meredith declares an Annulment of the Circle. Orsino turns to blood magic to save his hide and is killed. Meredith continues to go crazy. Everyone fights and kills her. Hawke disappears. The only variations you see are if you kill any of your companions along the way and if they make you Viscount for 3.5 seconds or not. 

That level of railroading is not required when you don't need to have everything end in nearly the same manner, which is a constraint the Save Import imposes on the narrative.

[MerinTB]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Rather than acknowlegding what I did in the previous game, the import rewrote my decisions to effectively tell me that I shouldn't have killed my companions / let them die, so they're now alive again. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb in saying that the way imports were handled in DA2 is easily the worst implementation of this Bioware has done to date.

I would wonder if you played ME3 then, where everyone who could be killed had a clone waiting in the wings... in the case of the Rachni Queen choice, there was LITERALLY a clone involved.

In some ways this was poorly handled, and to be used so wide-spread it was a cop-out...

but in several instances this not only made sense, but was well done.

It was the problem of applying one kind of solution to all problems, which is laziness in the extreme... not that the solution was a bad one in some cases.

[Sir JK]

Fast Jimmy:

This is what I talked about precisely, you've now painted up a picture that each choice must have radically different outcomes and that the save import prevents this form being actualized. There's no way for these imagined outcomes to be in the same game so clearly; save imports is a bad idea. And if each choice must be between black or white, then yeah... it's better with established canon. That way the game can run with the plot to it's logical conclusion.

What I'm arguing for is that choices and save import should change the details, but not the direction of the plot. Orzammar may have abolished the assembly and enfranchised the casteless, but it's still going to have the castes. Alistair may have provided a safe haven for the mages, but only becaue the Bannorn tolerates it. If a plot involves who holds the throne, does it matter... in regards to the plot? Or just it's presentation? If we have a plot about a group of citzens trying to overthrow Ferelden's monarchy and create a republic, then for the sake of the plot it won't really matter whether it's Alistair or Anora that is the monarch, will it? It'll matter for the presentation and perhaps even it's direction, but the conclusion need not be altered.

So in a sense, that using the save import to world build or pick between plots is a fools errand. It's rather unfeasible, as you point out. What I'm arguing for is that it should be used for personalizing plots, but not determining them. Kind of like the character creator, except more long term. Something ME3 touches on, but not takes far enough.

It achieves the same end as your suggestion really, since it arrives at the conclusion the writers wanted (and let's face it, it would anyways). But rather than discarding the "unwanted bits", it takes them with it and then incorporates them into the story to reach the end result. Thus allowing your choices to be respected and not discarded, but not be restricted by them.

I imagine it works well for most things that does not involve something's eradication- And for the plots that must end a specific way? Why give us a choice in how it ends at all?

[Wozearly]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Rather than acknowlegding what I did in the previous game, the import rewrote my decisions to effectively tell me that I shouldn't have killed my companions / let them die, so they're now alive again. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb in saying that the way imports were handled in DA2 is easily the worst implementation of this Bioware has done to date.

I would wonder if you played ME3 then, where everyone who could be killed had a clone waiting in the wings... in the case of the Rachni Queen choice, there was LITERALLY a clone involved.

Now, speaking personally, I didn't mind that approach.

The plot line of ME3 continued broadly unaffected by anything you'd done in the past, but the characters who would be involved, their relationship to you, and the potential outcomes that gave you could be distinctly different depending on your past decisions.

Cloning the Rachni Queen to make sure that there was a Rachni Queen in place for plot development #32 was a slightly cheap way out and could have been handled better, but at least this respected the past decisions that players had made.

I find promoting a save import feature on one hand, but then dismissing key player decisions on the other, as somewhat incompatible stances. Having a different clone is a far better approach than resurrecting the original character in this context.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Sir JK wrote...

Fast Jimmy:

This is what I talked about precisely, you've now painted up a picture that each choice must have radically different outcomes and that the save import prevents this form being actualized. There's no way for these imagined outcomes to be in the same game so clearly; save imports is a bad idea. And if each choice must be between black or white, then yeah... it's better with established canon. That way the game can run with the plot to it's logical conclusion.

What I'm arguing for is that choices and save import should change the details, but not the direction of the plot. Orzammar may have abolished the assembly and enfranchised the casteless, but it's still going to have the castes. Alistair may have provided a safe haven for the mages, but only becaue the Bannorn tolerates it. If a plot involves who holds the throne, does it matter... in regards to the plot? Or just it's presentation? If we have a plot about a group of citzens trying to overthrow Ferelden's monarchy and create a republic, then for the sake of the plot it won't really matter whether it's Alistair or Anora that is the monarch, will it? It'll matter for the presentation and perhaps even it's direction, but the conclusion need not be altered.

So in a sense, that using the save import to world build or pick between plots is a fools errand. It's rather unfeasible, as you point out. What I'm arguing for is that it should be used for personalizing plots, but not determining them. Kind of like the character creator, except more long term. Something ME3 touches on, but not takes far enough.

It achieves the same end as your suggestion really, since it arrives at the conclusion the writers wanted (and let's face it, it would anyways). But rather than discarding the "unwanted bits", it takes them with it and then incorporates them into the story to reach the end result. Thus allowing your choices to be respected and not discarded, but not be restricted by them.

I imagine it works well for most things that does not involve something's eradication- And for the plots that must end a specific way? Why give us a choice in how it ends at all?

But that would then limit the sorts of stories or plots that each game can allow.

Like the genophage cure in ME - the game world would change dramatically if we actually cured the genophage, so we're not allowed to do that.  We can't overthrow governments or destroy cities or win wars (unless losing was impossible) or lose wars (unless winning was impossible) because those would create world states that were too disparate.

That's the price of the save import.

[AlanC9]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
But that would then limit the sorts of stories or plots that each game can allow.

Like the genophage cure in ME - the game world would change dramatically if we actually cured the genophage, so we're not allowed to do that.  We can't overthrow governments or destroy cities or win wars (unless losing was impossible) or lose wars (unless winning was impossible) because those would create world states that were too disparate.

That's the price of the save import.

And I'd argue that, once again, in reality these things are never done by a meathead on the ground fighting mooks, so it's fan-service for them to happen--almost offensively so, in my opinion. I hate being pandered to.

But that's not a counter to Sylvius' point. Making us only play meatheads on the ground fighting mooks is a limit on the stories.