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[Sylvius the Mad]

King Cousland wrote...

The one that sticks out in my mind is Hawke asking what a Witch of the Wilds was, despite it being a story which most human Fereldans know (at least in part) from being children.

Why did he ask?

That's important.  You can decide that he asked because he was testing someone else's knowledge, or perception, or biases.

You don't only ask questions because you don't know the answers.

[King Cousland]

Sifr1449 wrote...

King Cousland wrote...

The one that sticks out in my mind is Hawke asking what a Witch of the Wilds was, despite it being a story which most human Fereldans know (at least in part) from being children. 

I always imagined it was because Leandra and Malcolm are Free Marchers. It was mentioned that they moved around a lot and only settled in Lothering permanently after Malcolm's death, so there's a few reasons why they might not know of the tale.

And besides, if you were a father trying to keep your family under the Templar's radar, would you tell your kids about fellow apostates of legend living in the nearby woods? Keep in mind, we're talking about impulsive teenagers here.

Excellent point, and one I hadn't considered. 

Though, to be pedantic, we don't know for certain where Malcolm is from 

Modifié par King Cousland, 16 août 2013 - 10:43 .

[King Cousland]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

King Cousland wrote...

The one that sticks out in my mind is Hawke asking what a Witch of the Wilds was, despite it being a story which most human Fereldans know (at least in part) from being children.

Why did he ask?

That's important.  You can decide that he asked because he was testing someone else's knowledge, or perception, or biases.

You don't only ask questions because you don't know the answers.

But context must also be considered. Do I sometimes ask questions to test somebody's knowledge, perception or biases? Absolutely. 

Would I do this after being surrounded by monstrous abominations ready to tear me apart, witnessing a dragon turn into an old woman in armour and while my life was still, for all intents and purposes, in danger? Probably not. 

I think in a broader sense your comment would be applicable, but not in this particular case. 

[Sasie]

I think the Hawke siblings might just been clueless in this case. Tried to google up videos of the conversation and both Carver and Bethany don't know anything about Flemeth while it's Aveline who informs the group on who they are dealing with.

Considering that Hawke responds completely differently when asked about the King and Ostagar my thoughts is that they just don't know about the Witch of the Wild legend. It's possible the three of them lived somewhat isolated lives in the village due to the fear of being discovered?

[King Cousland]

Sasie wrote...

I think the Hawke siblings might just been clueless in this case. Tried to google up videos of the conversation and both Carver and Bethany don't know anything about Flemeth while it's Aveline who informs the group on who they are dealing with.

Considering that Hawke responds completely differently when asked about the King and Ostagar my thoughts is that they just don't know about the Witch of the Wild legend. It's possible the three of them lived somewhat isolated lives in the village due to the fear of being discovered?

I did the same and drew the same conclusion. Sifr1449 offered a good explanation I think. 

[contextual_entity]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Every aspect of the PC's personality should be determined and controlled by the player.

That's a pretty lofty goal right there. What if I want to play a character who has no interest in participating in the story and will attempt to walk out even under threat of death? Will the game adapt to give me a 40 hour experience of drinking in a tavern, talking to travellers about what the Inquisition's second pick for hero is doing?

At some point or another you have to hand over at least a modicum of control to the storyteller, whether that's directly through a pre-built but malleable character whose role you assume, or indirectly through the details of the setting forcing you into a role that is willing to participate with the plot. The sheer existance of the predetermined setting limits your choice of character and their personalities.

There are benefits and trade-offs to each. A more directed character enables better and more cinematic events to be easily applied by the character without breaking character, while a less directed character allows a player to project more of his/herself on the experience at the cost of the game not always respecting that, because no developer can craft a game that seamlessly reacts to every conceivable facet of the human (or Dwarven/Elven) experience.

Now that I've gotten my daily rant out of the way; I'm good with either option, provided it's done well.

Modifié par Amitar, 17 août 2013 - 12:14 .

[Sifr]

King Cousland wrote...

Sasie wrote...

I think the Hawke siblings might just been clueless in this case. Tried to google up videos of the conversation and both Carver and Bethany don't know anything about Flemeth while it's Aveline who informs the group on who they are dealing with.

Considering that Hawke responds completely differently when asked about the King and Ostagar my thoughts is that they just don't know about the Witch of the Wild legend. It's possible the three of them lived somewhat isolated lives in the village due to the fear of being discovered?

I did the same and drew the same conclusion. Sifr1449 offered a good explanation I think. 

The seperate village idea has some merit to it as well, since Mage Hawke mentions to Aveline having been away from home at the time,  while Warrior or Rogue Hawke states they only came back to Lothering to take part in the Battle of Ostagar.

It's possible that Hawke may have moved out already or supports the family by traveling to nearby villages to trade, something MotA mentioned Hawke often used to do with their father. Unless he was referring to Lothering, we know via Daveth in Origins that there are other villages existing near the Wilds.

[Sasie]

Amitar wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Every aspect of the PC's personality should be determined and controlled by the player.

That's a pretty lofty goal right there. What if I want to play a character who has no interest in participating in the story and will attempt to walk out even under threat of death? Will the game adapt to give me a 40 hour experience of drinking in a tavern, talking to travellers about what the Inquisition's second pick for hero is doing?

At some point or another you have to hand over at least a modicum of control to the storyteller, whether that's directly through a pre-built but malleable character whose role you assume, or indirectly through the details of the setting forcing you into a role that is willing to participate with the plot. The sheer existance of the predetermined setting limits your choice of character and their personalities.

There are benefits and trade-offs to each. A more directed character enables better and more cinematic events to be easily applied by the character without breaking character, while a less directed character allows a player to project more of his/herself on the experience at the cost of the game not always respecting that, because not developer game craft a game that seamlessly reacts to every conceivable facet of the human (or Dwarven/Elven) experience.

Now that I've gotten my daily rant out of the way; I'm good with either option, provided it's done well.

Well I have to admit both paths do work for me as well. I can't remember being bored or even noticing something was wrong the first time I went through DA:O. It probably wasn't even until my second/third playthrough that I started to be bothered by things I seen before that I now thought the character should already know. 

As such playing ourselves inside the game in my opinion works better the first time through the game while the character having a personality or some hisory of it's own helps with the replay value. If a game is done like Kotor 2 for example it can be somewhat confusing the first time what is actually going on but it's possible that fall under the 'badly handled' case. 

Honestly I still have no idea of the specific cases Atton accuses the Exile of on Nar Shaada but I suppose we didn't need to know the details to decide if our character was a war criminal or if Atton was simply misguided in his hatred. Still I think in the end I prefer the second option since with Codex and the like they can let us know our character's history and build on that even under our first time through the game while the flaws of the Avatar being us will just become more obvious the futher one progress through the game.

I would like to see something similar to Hawke's story with the Inquisitor were friends and family existed and it allowed us to shape a character based on a already established origin.

Modifié par Sasie, 16 août 2013 - 11:45 .

[Fallstar]

I personally tend to role play one character as myself, then make new ones. This approach was catered for well in DA:O.

[Jessabeth]

Sasie wrote...

Navasha wrote...


Likewise in other games like Mass effect 3 there is no real choice but to have Vega along at first and listen to conversations discussing plenty of stuff people in the universe should already know. I do think DA2 handled it better then Origins but even there you missed out of a lot of dialog and conversation with companions if you don't ask what a Witch of the Wilds is for example in the beginning. Now perhaps Hawke is a bit dumb but I imagine someone growing up close to the wilds would know the legend when everyone else does.

For the ME3 thing, they intentionally had information like that for newcomers to the series. Many sequels will have information for those who (for some reason) decided not to play the previous games of the series. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Amitar wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Every aspect of the PC's personality should be determined and controlled by the player.

That's a pretty lofty goal right there. What if I want to play a character who has no interest in participating in the story and will attempt to walk out even under threat of death? Will the game adapt to give me a 40 hour experience of drinking in a tavern, talking to travellers about what the Inquisition's second pick for hero is doing?

Where exactly did I claim that the player had to have total freedom is designing that personality?

I said the player needed control, not freedom.  Every time there exists the choice, the player must be the one to choose it.  Never should the choice be made for him.

That does not mean that the options need never be limited - only that there must always be options.

At some point or another you have to hand over at least a modicum of control to the storyteller, whether that's directly through a pre-built but malleable character whose role you assume, or indirectly through the details of the setting forcing you into a role that is willing to participate with the plot. The sheer existance of the predetermined setting limits your choice of character and their personalities.

I don't actually agree that it does, necessarily, but I'm also not asking for unfettered freedom.  At no point did I say we should have unfettered freedom.

There are benefits and trade-offs to each. A more directed character enables better and more cinematic events to be easily applied by the character without breaking character, while a less directed character allows a player to project more of his/herself on the experience at the cost of the game not always respecting that, because no developer can craft a game that seamlessly reacts to every conceivable facet of the human (or Dwarven/Elven) experience.

No.  As soon as things are decided for me (how to deliver a line, what facial expression to display, which tactics to employ, which path to follow, why a specific option is chosen), then the character I've so carefully constructed is potentially broken.

[David7204]

There never has been a player character the player has real control over.

There never will be.

It would not only be impossible from a technical perspective, but ridiculous from a narrative perspective.

If that's not something that you can accept...that's really just too bad. Because that's reality.

Modifié par David7204, 17 août 2013 - 01:14 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Why do people keep equating control with freedom?

The player had almost total control over the PC in BG, BG2, NWN, and KotOR. That control was diminished somewhat in JE and DAO, but not significantly.

There was no control at all in DA2 or the ME games. And no, not because of the voice. There could have still been control, but there wasn't.

[Fast Jimmy]

David7204 wrote...

There has been a player character the player has real control over.

There never will be.

It would not only be impossible from a technical perspective, but ridiculous from a narrative perspective.

If that's not something that you can accept...that's really just too bad. Because that's reality.

That's a mind-blowing typo right there. 

[David7204]

Whoops. Fixed.

[MaraGriffyn]

It's the classic dilemma of all speculative fiction: how to teach a newcomer (reader, viewer, player) about the basic mechanics of the world and give them the necessary information to understand what's going on? It's why so many RPGs use the amnesia trope - it's an easy way to do that, make the player character as ignorant of the world as the player.

It's also, IMO, kind of a cop-out, which is why I like Bioware's attempts to give us options while still giving us a stake in the world right from the beginning. It's not perfect (see also: some of the stupid Mass Effect 101 questions Shepard can ask) but when it works, I prefer it. Someone above mentioned Hawke's question about Meredith early in DA2 - that one really worked for me because the line ended up being "Isn't that a Templar title?" and allowed the character to then explain in a relatively organic way about Templars and the situation in Kirkwall. So yeah, in general I prefer (and feel a stronger connection to) a protagonist who is clearly part of the world and has a clear stake in it from the beginning.

[o Ventus]

Jessabeth wrote...

For the ME3 thing, they intentionally had information like that for newcomers to the series. Many sequels will have information for those who (for some reason) decided not to play the previous games of the series. 

That's the reason WHY it's so bad. How many newcomers to a series start with the final game?

Not to mention that literally everything James talks about (besides his personal backstory) can be found in the codex.

[MaraGriffyn]

o Ventus wrote...

That's the reason WHY it's so bad. How many newcomers to a series start with the final game?

Not to mention that literally everything James talks about (besides his personal backstory) can be found in the codex.

It's always assumed that a significant portion of the audience is new, even for the third installment of a series. Same goes with movie sequels, etc. That's just standard procedure when writing. Personally, I found it fine in ME3, I thought it worked well and felt as organic as exposition ever can. 

You also have to assume that the majority of your players won't be interested in digging through codex entries for essential information.

[DPSSOC]

o Ventus wrote...

Jessabeth wrote...

For the ME3 thing, they intentionally had information like that for newcomers to the series. Many sequels will have information for those who (for some reason) decided not to play the previous games of the series. 

That's the reason WHY it's so bad. How many newcomers to a series start with the final game?

Not to mention that literally everything James talks about (besides his personal backstory) can be found in the codex.

And that fact establishes a very important but never mentioned aspect of James character; he's an idiot and he can't read.

[o Ventus]

MaraGriffyn wrote...

o Ventus wrote...

That's the reason WHY it's so bad. How many newcomers to a series start with the final game?

Not to mention that literally everything James talks about (besides his personal backstory) can be found in the codex.

It's always assumed that a significant portion of the audience is new, even for the third installment of a series. Same goes with movie sequels, etc. That's just standard procedure when writing. Personally, I found it fine in ME3, I thought it worked well and felt as organic as exposition ever can. 

You also have to assume that the majority of your players won't be interested in digging through codex entries for essential information.

He doesn't even talk about anything essential. Anything even remotely important that James brings up is also discussed during the srespective story arcs. Instead I handling exposition there (where it would make some sort of sense, they make Shepard expose the information to James, so when it comes up durin the arc, it just feels awkward because the same information is bein repeated.

[MaraGriffyn]

We may not be talking about the same comments, then. This is getting a little off-topic for this thread, but I'm thinking primarily of James' comments immediately after leaving Earth, and his and Kaidan/Ashley's stuff during the Mars mission, where they are mostly talking about Cerberus and Shepard's history with them. Which is definitely essential information.

[tomorrowstation]

Well, we are playing an inquisitor. It's kinda their job to ask lots and lots of questions, sometimes repeatedly. It's baked into your title.

In fact, this may be the first game in DA history where the asking of questions all the time is justified, as part of your job.

[o Ventus]

MaraGriffyn wrote...

We may not be talking about the same comments, then. This is getting a little off-topic for this thread, but I'm thinking primarily of James' comments immediately after leaving Earth, and his and Kaidan/Ashley's stuff during the Mars mission, where they are mostly talking about Cerberus and Shepard's history with them. Which is definitely essential information.

On Menae, James doesn't know what the genophage is, and Shepard and Garrus explain it to him. Later, on Tuchanka, Wrex explains it to Shepard.

Even James talking to Kaidan/Ashley about Shepard working with Cerberus is unfounded. Ash/Kaidan already know, and the Illusive Man brings it up too, not even 5 minutes later. It's forced exposition that doesn't feel a all natural.

[Lokiwithrope]

I did like Hawke having a personality beyond yourself. Seems more like a person that way.

[Sylvius the Mad]

But not a person I liked or understood.

At least the characters I design are characters I want to play, and characters whose motives I understand well enough to make decisions for them.