252 réponses à ce sujet

[Ianamus]

Rawgrim wrote...

EJ107 wrote...

I wouldn't say the rivalry system was bad. In fact when it came to romances I thought it was very interesting.

Some rivalmances were far more believable and engaging than their friendship counterparts. A Hawke who loves Merrill but hates how the mirror is ruining her life works brilliantly. Saving her from herself becuase he/she cares that much. 

The problem comes from lumping downright mean stuff with rivalry. A Hawke who disagrees with Fenris's views on mages and wants him to let go of his anger for his own sake? A brilliant romance path that I found really engaging. A Hawke who condones slavery and says he will take Oranna as his slave? And then Fenris comes and sleeps with them at the same house the slave is being held at! Now that really is a problem. 

It's a shame because the friendship/rivalry system worked well in many ways, particuarly with romances. They just needed to do something with the nasty, insulting and downright evil choices the player could make that wasn't lumping them in with rivalry.

It still felt like Hawke could do no wrong at all, and everyone just liked him because he was controlled by the player. You can be downright mean and evil to them for 7 years, and yet they still show up at the final battle, as if you are their best friend in the whole world.

If they had seperated the mean-spirited and nastry stuff from the "I disagree with you" and "I am doing this for your own good" stuff it would have worked really well. Making both of those lead down the same path, particuarly one that could result in romance, was the problem. 

Modifié par EJ107, 14 août 2013 - 12:24 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I belive he said it in one of the videos that are linked up on page 1. The romance panel bit.

I watched that. He was using a term that fans use. Personally I think he dislikes the classifications at all, and am pretty sure he refers to the term as a community driven creation.

[In Exile]

David7204 wrote...

Sometimes fairness and equality are mutually exclusive.

Often, in fact.

Not to take this down a horrible route... 

... but how about five examples? Because analytically, equality is very much rooted in fairness. You can't separate the two without a very wonky definition of "fair" (or equal). 

[Rawgrim]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I belive he said it in one of the videos that are linked up on page 1. The romance panel bit.

I watched that. He was using a term that fans use. Personally I think he dislikes the classifications at all, and am pretty sure he refers to the term as a community driven creation.

Could be. I don`t know the fellow. Seems nice though, for an evil overlord.

[billy the squid]

Rawgrim wrote...

EJ107 wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Quota systems are sh*t and should never be used. Its the same mindset as designing by committee, appease everyone and shove some mediocre tripe out.

The DA2 system with its faults is perhaps the better solution, given the finite time and resources available, without the need to lock everything down and box NPC to one group. DA2's problem was the NPC behaviour didn't change in relation to the player's actions. It occurred in what felt like a vaccum. ie: I could be a jerk to Anders, oppose every idea and view he had and he would still want to bonk the player character, that quite frankly, is stupid.

Their behaviour towards the player needs to fit that character's personality, and the behaviour of the player needs to inform the NPC's actions and opinion of the player, determining if that romance option is open. Actually making players work to explore the option, over time and making it more involved, mitigates the ambushing scenario with Anders, where the actions of the player counted for little in the following conversations.

I wouldn't say the rivalry system was bad. In fact when it came to romances I thought it was very interesting.

Some rivalmances were far more believable and engaging than their friendship counterparts. A Hawke who loves Merrill but hates how the mirror is ruining her life works brilliantly.

The problem comes from lumping downright mean stuff with rivalry. A Hawke who disagrees with Fenris's views on mages and wants him to let go of his anger for his own sake? A brilliant romance path that I found really engaging. A Hawke who condones slavery and says he will take Oranna as his slave? And then Fenris comes and kisses them at the house where that slave is being held! 

It's a shame because the rivalry system worked well in many ways, particuarly with romances. They just needed to do something else with the nasty, insulting and downright evil choices the player could make rather than lumping them in with rivalry.

It still felt like Hawke could do no wrong at all, and everyone just liked him because he was controlled by the player. You can be downright mean and evil to them for 7 years, and yet they still show up at the final battle, as if you are their best friend in the whole world.

Its the problem of a more open romance mechanic system, the conversation need to be more involved and certain action locking players out, despite behaviour later which might redeem the player in the NPC's eyes, but still preclude any romance options. That doesn't happen with rivalry and paragon, as it's a forced dichotomy, be a jerk to get the points you need to get the romance option regardless.

Really it comes down to details, options and choice and consequence in the dialogue and romance mechanics, while the NPC's mechanical choices being informed by the players actions. 

DAO's gift system was open to abuse, okay, well what about if you didn't give gifts with the exception of plot items. It becomes a fair bit more difficult to convince someone to romance if they stand against everything you're advocating.

[devSin]

billy the squid wrote...

No, it uses the same bi polar design of ME3 renegade and paragon where in lies the problem. It still ended with romance, getting your cake and eating it, rather cheap way of doing things when the central tenit of a NPCs belief is a polar opposite to the player's. That is what make charcter's look like walking wish fullfilment and that they appear to bend to the player's will. It's not their player central sexuality that is an issue. Its the fact that they have the resolve of a wet paper bag.

I can understand taking issue with the inability to really make somebody hate you in DA2 (rivalry was simply respect of a different sort); the story wasn't constructed that way. And I can understand people preferring a system where you can do things that cause somebody to dislike you (and I believe the limitation is one of the reasons David said long ago that friendship/rivalry would not be returning in DA3).

But it's not really relevant to which genders can romance a given character (to the point I'm not sure why you'd attempt to conflate the two), and it's not truly indicative of an absence of reactivity (it's just not the sort of reactivity you wanted to see).

With luck, the system they have in DA3 will be better than both Origins' approval and DA2's friendship/rivalry. But I suspect those who have issues with the inclusive romances will continue to have them.

Modifié par devSin, 14 août 2013 - 12:28 .

[Rawgrim]

EJ107 wrote...

Rawgrim wrote...

EJ107 wrote...

I wouldn't say the rivalry system was bad. In fact when it came to romances I thought it was very interesting.

Some rivalmances were far more believable and engaging than their friendship counterparts. A Hawke who loves Merrill but hates how the mirror is ruining her life works brilliantly. Saving her from herself becuase he/she cares that much. 

The problem comes from lumping downright mean stuff with rivalry. A Hawke who disagrees with Fenris's views on mages and wants him to let go of his anger for his own sake? A brilliant romance path that I found really engaging. A Hawke who condones slavery and says he will take Oranna as his slave? And then Fenris comes and sleeps with them at the same house the slave is being held at! Now that really is a problem. 

It's a shame because the friendship/rivalry system worked well in many ways, particuarly with romances. They just needed to do something with the nasty, insulting and downright evil choices the player could make that wasn't lumping them in with rivalry.

It still felt like Hawke could do no wrong at all, and everyone just liked him because he was controlled by the player. You can be downright mean and evil to them for 7 years, and yet they still show up at the final battle, as if you are their best friend in the whole world.

If they had seperated the mean-spirited and nastry stuff from the "I disagree with you" and "I am doing this for your own good" stuff it would have worked really well. Making both of those lead down the same path, particuarly one that could result in romance, was the problem. 

Yup, it was the implementation. Same thing with how the "everyone is bi" was implemented. The idea behind it - giving fairness and inclusion for everyone - is all well and good, of course.

[David7204]

I tend to think of fairness as 'giving people what's appropriate/earned/justified/reasonable whatever' and equality as 'giving everyone the same thing regardless.' So that would be any time people are unequal. Be that in any number of ways.

But that's going down a bit of a tangent just on word choice.

[ElitePinecone]

Rawgrim wrote...

Well Anders seems very straight in DA:A, I didn`t use him that much in that game, though, so i am not the best source for it. But I see others claiming the change was more "visable" in his case.

Fun fact: David Gaider wrote Anders in DA:A and he's actually stated that he saw Anders as rather gay when he was first given the character art and they were working on the concept and personality.

I know David hates being quoted without a source (and I'm pretty sure it was in an old panel recording that he said that) but it's important to remember that what you interpret about a character in the game can have little if any relation to what the author thinks about them - or what the author intends for them later.

[Rawgrim]

Filament wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I belive he said it in one of the videos that are linked up on page 1. The romance panel bit.

I watched that. He was using a term that fans use. Personally I think he dislikes the classifications at all, and am pretty sure he refers to the term as a community driven creation.

If you'd just support the Wii U platform we could all start calling it U-sexual.

Better than gameboy sexual

[David7204]

It's interesting to see complaints about the Mass Effect morality system and Dragon Age characters liking you no matter what in the same post. Because it seems to me like the solution you're asking for to the Dragon Age problem is basically the system Mass Effect uses that you criticize in the very same post as 'binary.'

Characters only like you and accept if you're more-or-less agreeable to them. Being polite and friendly and compassionate is good. Being a jerk or rude or inconsiderate is bad. (I actually wouldn't have a problem with that at all.)

And let's not make claims that half the characters should like and respect you for being rude to them. That would be horrible for several reasons.

Modifié par David7204, 14 août 2013 - 12:37 .

[Rawgrim]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Rawgrim wrote...

Well Anders seems very straight in DA:A, I didn`t use him that much in that game, though, so i am not the best source for it. But I see others claiming the change was more "visable" in his case.

Fun fact: David Gaider wrote Anders in DA:A and he's actually stated that he saw Anders as rather gay when he was first given the character art and they were working on the concept and personality.

I know David hates being quoted without a source (and I'm pretty sure it was in an old panel recording that he said that) but it's important to remember that what you interpret about a character in the game can have little if any relation to what the author thinks about them - or what the author intends for them later.

You don`t have to quote it. If you say he said that, I belive you. I didn`t use Anders that much, so I can`t argue the point. Seemed more of a humorus fellow, wich wasn`t the case in DA2.

[billy the squid]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Fuse, EA's latest flop suffered from exactly what I'm referring to. Appeal to a focus group by focus testing everything, without regard for the inherrent social desirability bias which plagues it and people's actual buying habits.

Its precisely the reason evey other game needs to be a FPS or copy CoD and WoW "this is what lots of people like, therefore we should make more of it" behaviour. But considering they already have it, it renders the product moot as they fight over the same over saturated market. Its what happend with MoH warfighter it did exactly that, design by committee to appeal to a cross section or quota of different people and it failed.

Apologize for taking this down a semantics route, but I'm confused because your application of the term "Design by Committee" appears to be very different than mine (Reference), and more akin to something like, metrics driven design (which is all about taking existing data points and feedback and basing your decision making process on that feedback).

I'm not actually 100% certain what your critique is. I agree that there's a bit too much focus on metric driven design (the problem with metric driven design is that you fundamentally will not innovate). Although I can see the two working "together" as different departments have different goals and influence the product in suboptimal ways (Design by Committee) and substantiate their positions with metrics.

I went slightly off on a tangent, although it's somewhat linked.

The main point is that the writing team should be allowed to write the characters as they see fit, not "design by committee" which was regarding the mention of quota of characters with a particular sexuality which was mentioned earlier. This tends to drive me nuts and irritates me no end.  ie: "well, we see by the metrics that the this many people want s/s romances, so we'll do 2. And this many like hetrosexual romances so we'll do 3" and so on.

Focus testing as a tool is fine. But this was the issue with New Coke, focus testing it in a vaccum, with disregard to all other data and the inherrent flaws of things like desireability bias when using focus testing. I see any use of a quota system as linked to this kind of mind set.

Which is also why I don't think the open ended mechanics in the romances of DA2 were a bad thing, even if I felt the implementation was lacking and it had some major problems running through it.

[devSin]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Fun fact: David Gaider wrote Anders in DA:A and he's actually stated that he saw Anders as rather gay when he was first given the character art and they were working on the concept and personality.

It was on his blog; personally, I think David's falling over himself a bit much to support the cause. (And there's a difference between Anders looking gay and actually being written as a gay character.)

I sympathize, as it's probably not as convincing when they say it simply doesn't matter (you'd have to ask him, but I'd bet he'd say that he didn't really consider it and didn't even care all that much when writing him what, if any, sexuality he would have). But I don't buy that he wasn't walking the straight line when writing Anders (he talks about women a lot), even if it wasn't his intent to assign a particular sexuality. (And I don't think that invalidates his accessibility in DA2 besides.)

[In Exile]

devSin wrote...
But I don't buy that he wasn't walking the straight line when writing Anders (he talks about women a lot), even if it wasn't his intent to assign a particular sexuality. (And I don't think that invalidates his accessibility in DA2 besides.)

Anders happens to like women in DA2, too. Even if you're in an M/M romance, as a banter with Isabella about the Pearl suggests. 

[Rawgrim]

devSin wrote...

ElitePinecone wrote...

Fun fact: David Gaider wrote Anders in DA:A and he's actually stated that he saw Anders as rather gay when he was first given the character art and they were working on the concept and personality.

It was on his blog; personally, I think David's falling over himself a bit much to support the cause. (And there's a difference between Anders looking gay and actually being written as a gay character.)

I sympathize, as it's probably not as convincing when they say it simply doesn't matter (you'd have to ask him, but I'd bet he'd say that he didn't really consider it and didn't even care all that much when writing him what, if any, sexuality he would have). But I don't buy that he wasn't walking the straight line when writing Anders (he talks about women a lot), even if it wasn't his intent to assign a particular sexuality. (And I don't think that invalidates his accessibility in DA2 besides.)

DA:A didn`t have romances either, so it probably wasn`t the most important bits to add to the character.

[In Exile]

David7204 wrote...

I tend to think of fairness as 'giving people what's appropriate/earned/justified/reasonable whatever' and equality as 'giving everyone the same thing regardless.' So that would be any time people are unequal. Be that in any number of ways. .

Google "substantive equality". That's the notion that we run with nowadays, and that ties more to the notion of fairness you've mentioned. Treat like as like ideas of fairness when out of flavour a long time ago. 

Not an intent to derail, but food for thought. 

[devSin]

In Exile wrote...

Anders happens to like women in DA2, too. Even if you're in an M/M romance, as a banter with Isabella about the Pearl suggests.

Certainly. The idea wasn't that he was ever homosexual.

But I'd dispute that David ever went into a line of dialogue thinking "hmm, maybe he's bisexual". He has several instances of suggestive comments about women in Awakening, to the point where he felt de facto straight, David's intent or not.

Women were to Anders what justice was to Justice. He didn't seem to think about much else. ;-)

Like I said, it doesn't invalidate bisexuality (at least as far as I'm concerned), but I just can't buy David's argument in this case as being anything other than a distraction (I feel he'd have more success arguing that it just didn't even matter until now).

Modifié par devSin, 14 août 2013 - 12:59 .

[billy the squid]

devSin wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

No, it uses the same bi polar design of ME3 renegade and paragon where in lies the problem. It still ended with romance, getting your cake and eating it, rather cheap way of doing things when the central tenit of a NPCs belief is a polar opposite to the player's. That is what make charcter's look like walking wish fullfilment and that they appear to bend to the player's will. It's not their player central sexuality that is an issue. Its the fact that they have the resolve of a wet paper bag.

I can understand taking issue with the inability to really make somebody hate you in DA2 (rivalry was simply respect of a different sort); the story wasn't constructed that way. And I can understand people preferring a system where you can do things that cause somebody to dislike you (and I believe the limitation is one of the reasons David said long ago that friendship/rivalry would not be returning in DA3).

But it's not really relevant to which genders can romance a given character (to the point I'm not sure why you'd attempt to conflate the two), and it's not truly indicative of an absence of reactivity (it's just not the sort of reactivity you wanted to see).

With luck, the system they have in DA3 will be better than both Origins' approval and DA2's friendship/rivalry. But I suspect those who have issues with the inclusive romances will continue to have them.

Respecting someone but disagreeing with them does not entail that they will let you jump into their pants. Which is what reinforces the problem of every character looking gay, bi, whatever. Because they bend to the player's will. They're not, but it looks that way because it's a failure in the game mechanics, rather than the open ended option which DA2 instituted, which prima facie was fine. 

It's relevant in that the poor implementation of the open ended system has let things run away, when the discussion should be about the mechanics, coding and how they're implemented it tends to veer off into into a fairly superficial back and forth of which gender can romance who and really that's neither here nor there. 

Hence I draw a clear distinction between the open ended romance mechanics and DA2, but pointing out the failings and the desire for a quota, because of equality, fairness or any other rubbish. Quotas are bad design choices, and designers should be free to do what they want. 

The reactivity remains superficial, because they don't actually change their opinion ie: Ander's still goes full retard in the end, and it highlights my exact point about NPC's bending to the player's will, which created the misconception that every NPC is bi, they're not, but it looks that way, because the player always gets their way. Hence my comment of the NPCs appearing to have the resolve of a wet paper bag.

[sandalisthemaker]

devSin wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Anders happens to like women in DA2, too. Even if you're in an M/M romance, as a banter with Isabella about the Pearl suggests.

Certainly. The idea wasn't that he was ever homosexual.

But I'd dispute that David ever went into a line of dialogue thinking "hmm, maybe he's bisexual". He has several instances of suggestive comments about women in Awakening, to the point where he was de facto straight, David's intent or not.

Women were to Anders what justice was to Justice. He didn't seem to think about much else. ;-)

Like I said, it doesn't invalidate bisexuality (at least as far as I'm concerned), but I don't think David's gesticulations in this case were anything more than simply trying to distract us from how Anders actually behaved in Awakening.

I never saw the point in having Anders needlessly gush on and on about women anyway. I guess he replaced women with mage plight in DA2 as the number one thing on his mind.

Modifié par sandalisthemaker, 14 août 2013 - 12:59 .

[David7204]

While characters should react in dialogue to the player treating them badly, they shouldn't be removed from the plot on such justification.

For example, Liara saves Shepard's body between ME 1 and ME 2. You can't you shouldn't remove that just because the player was rude to Liara. The discrepency is a necessary trade off in exchange for friendly characters who play any sort of role in the 'main' story.

Modifié par David7204, 14 août 2013 - 01:05 .

[billy the squid]

David7204 wrote...

While characters should react in dialogue to the player treating them badly, they shouldn't be removed from the plot on such justification.

For example, Liara saves Shepard's body between ME 1 and ME 2. You can't just remove that just because the player was rude to Liara. The discrepency is a necessary trade off in exchange for friendly characters who play any sort of role in the 'main' story.

You still on the "David brand Heroism" ? Play DAO then come back to this thread, as I'm fairly sure you don't have a clue what you're chatting about.

[David7204]

Why don't you attempt to counter what I say instead of just repeating your little litanies?

[billy the squid]

David7204 wrote...

Why don't you attempt to counter what I say instead of just repeating your little litanies?

Because there's nothing to counter, its your usual uniformed drivel. Hence go and play DAO and then come back and talk about characters leaving.

Modifié par billy the squid, 14 août 2013 - 01:10 .