227 réponses à ce sujet

[Nefla]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

I disagree, I found the lack of control in DA2 to be more of a bonus, than a negative. It allowed more genuine situations to come about. How do you deal with tragedy? What happens when things don't work out in your favor? How do you handle interacting with someone in grief who you know you should comfort, but don't know how? Very good elements that I enjoyed in the game.

I have nothing invested in these people.  Why would I care about them at all?  I didn't even feel close to Hawke, beause I didn't understand him as a person.  Therefore, when he experienced tragedy, I didn't care.  When people close to him died, not only did I not care, but I didn't have any reason to believe that he did, either.

Darth Brotarian wrote...

Really? That's honestly interesting to me. Are you like that with real world tradgedies as well? Not trying to pick a fight just asking.

People I don't know die every day.  I can't imagine getting too upset about it.

I totally agree. Something like Hawke just standing there while that blood mage elf(who you already know is a murderous psycho who's wife is afraid of him) comes up to his wife and kills her. You literally stand there staring until he's done and THEN you attack.  It's not meaningful or tragic, it's just hamfisted and annoying.  The character could have done something, it's the player who's restricted. A scenario where the character can't reasonably do anything to help would be much better. Something like: you're in the deep roads being chased by a ton of darkspawn and your party rushes across a bridge only to have it collapse with one person left on the other side to be overwhelmed. This character would have to be well developed though.

The sibling deaths in the opening scene were ridiculous, and you didn't know anything about them. It was literally "here is your sister, now she's dead" even the PC and the other sibling show barely any emotion about it. The reaction is like if the barn burned down, not the death of a sibling. Leandra was also not developed very well. You speak to her infrequently and she doesn't have much of a personality of her own. Her death relies on the player thinking "how would I feel if MY mom died?" rather than the loss of an interesting and likable character you have become attached to. The scene itself was also strange and corny. It seemed like it was ripped straight from an anime geared at 13 year olds "my wife is dead so I will ressurect her with your loved one's body!" Especially since necromancy was not explored in the story before and not after. 

[Cainhurst Crow]

I guess I'll just not understand this point of view. Too confusing to comprehend for me. It takes very little for me to become invested in a characters life, so I don't understand the not being able to relate parts.

Modifié par Darth Brotarian, 23 septembre 2013 - 03:11 .

[DadeLeviathan]

While I liked the more 'intimate' feel of DA2, it was an absolute mess story-wise. While I agree with the idea on principle, my only stipulation would be that the story actually be a personal story with Da4, and not, "And then this happened, because reasons. And because reasons, then this happened. And then this happened. And then Anders blew up the chantry and everybody died, the end."

[puppy maclove]

Vicious wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I only partly disagree. I do think DA2 did some very interesting things with narrative structure - some of which I'd been asking BioWare to do for some time.

But, I think DA2's overall quality (or lack thereof) had quite a lot to do with how it was received - it wasn't disliked just because it was different.

So, while DA2 did some very interesting and valuable things with its design, that design was not well executed.

If DAI is better received, the lesson I think BioWare should take from that is that each game needs to be given sufficient development time to do it well, regardless of its scope. But I also think BioWare has already learned that lesson.

This 100%. 

+ 2

[Leoroc]

I certainly enjoyed the story and personal scope of DA2, my complaints were solely execution based. A Dragon Age IV focused on just the Qunari/Tevinter conflict, or internal Grey Warden/Weisshaupt stuff could be pretty cool.

[Reznore57]

I really liked DA2 ,( yeah it was rushed to death and it shows ).
So I wouldn't mind having a smaller scope more intimate story if Bioware is ready to invest time and money in it.
There were a lot of very cool idea behind Kirkwall , the ten years and a less badass hero were good in theory .
But like tons of people noticed , the execution was lacking .

[sky_captain]

I loved the concept of DA2 the whole rags to riches, fantasy bio pic type storyline, the issues I take with it are the shoddy execution on the story level, and gameplay level.

Like many here I belive it comes down to how much time they have to create and refine the elements in the game, in DA2 the most irritating thing was that they seemed to have all of the pieces but didn't take the time to put them together in an interesting and meaningful way.

[Fast Jimmy]

Well, with DA2, not only was the timeline crunched, but the scope was mammoth.

Going from silent to voiced PC, including implementing the dialogue wheel.
Introducing a family that would include companions and undergo events with the PC.
Limiting all activity to one city/surrounding areas.
Having the first DA game that would be importing files from a separate game.
Passage of time, so that the game takes place over 7/10 years.
Framed narrative given from the "future."
New combat system that was designed to be much more responsive.
Artistic redesign and style of the entire series, including races and creatures.
Introduction of Friendship/Rivalry system.
Moving from a "PC first" to "console first" design philosophy.
And, of course, the "smaller story" concept.

Many of these changes were first attempts by the DA team, many more were first attempts by Bioware in general. They could have made a "DA:O2" in such an aggressive time frame and had it be more successful than trying to implement such a laundry list of design changes. If this was a project I was managing, the amount of scope creep and complete lack of change control would have given me a heart attack.

Let alone the fact that it was going to be produced in less than a third of the time the first game had been.

[Fast Jimmy]

Like many here I belive it comes down to how much time they have to create and refine the elements in the game, in DA2 the most irritating thing was that they seemed to have all of the pieces but didn't take the time to put them together in an interesting and meaningful way.

This rings true for me, as well. The game feels like a checklist in some areas, rather than a cohesive product. Like someone had a vision, wrote all the things they thought would complete that vision down into a requirements document, they completed everything on that list, but then no one went back and compared the final result to the actual vision. It was just the checklist of features and functions, not the final "does this all tie together in the way we had envisioned it" sort of review.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 23 septembre 2013 - 06:26 .

[Reznore57]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Well, with DA2, not only was the timeline crunched, but the scope was mammoth.

Going from silent to voiced PC, including implementing the dialogue wheel.
Introducing a family that would include companions and undergo events with the PC.
Limiting all activity to one city/surrounding areas.
Having the first DA game that would be importing files from a separate game.
Passage of time, so that the game takes place over 7/10 years.
Framed narrative given from the "future."
New combat system that was designed to be much more responsive.
Artistic redesign and style of the entire series, including races and creatures.
Introduction of Friendship/Rivalry system.
Moving from a "PC first" to "console first" design philosophy.
And, of course, the "smaller story" concept.

Everytime I think about all the changes and the time frame , I can't help but picture a really really drunk orchestra conductor leading the DA2 project , paper flying everywhere and everyone being hysterical.

[Shevy]

Maybe, in the form of an episodic game like TWD.
Say you have these huge projects like DA:I roughly every 3-4 years with up to a year DLC support. Between these "major" releases, create episodes that are closed within themselves, but provide connections between each other.

After playing TWD I imagined how good DA 2 could have been as a game of 3 episodes. The acts were pretty disengaged to begin with, so I think with more effort for every act/episode and an internal closure, they could have been way better.

[ianvillan]

Shevy_001 wrote...

Maybe, in the form of an episodic game like TWD.
Say you have these huge projects like DA:I roughly every 3-4 years with up to a year DLC support. Between these "major" releases, create episodes that are closed within themselves, but provide connections between each other.

After playing TWD I imagined how good DA 2 could have been as a game of 3 episodes. The acts were pretty disengaged to begin with, so I think with more effort for every act/episode and an internal closure, they could have been way better.

I like that idea, fans keep asking for Tevinter or the Qunari to plays as so Bioware could do these as an episode and see how they are received by fans and maybe have backstories of new characters they might want in the next game.

[Steppenwolf]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I actually agree.

On a personal level I hope that when people say that they didn't like the game for it's lack of epic scope, it's actually more a representation on how they simply didn't like our execution and other aspects of it.

I like a smaller, tighter story too.

I think DA][ had fundemental flaws that prevented it from being a great game. It was a "personal" story with hamfisted "epicness" tacked on. The game constradicted it's own intent by presenting it as a story of a person rising from the gutters to the top while doing practically nothing to illustrate why he rose to the top or ever actually elevating him/her to the top.

Hawke needs to make some money to get rich.
OH WOAH HOLY CRAP THERE'S CRAZY MONSTERS AND RED LYRIUM THIS IS EPIC ERQH GQRKUGYRWGEB!
Hawke is now rich and... a series of unfortunate events.
OH WOW THE QUNARI ARE ANGRY AND HAWKE KILLS THE BIG ONE AND NOW PEOPLE LOVE HIM EVEN THOUGH HE DIDN'T SAVE THE VISCOUNT CHAMPION CHAMPION CHAMPION ERJGFVVEBGWBWBBFSKJBG!
Hawke is now "the champion" and the mages and Templars of Kirkwall are in the midst of a cold war.
OH HURR EVEN THOUGH CHAMPION MEANS NOTHING HAWKE IS IMPORTANT IN THE CONFLICT EVEN THOUGH HE'S NOT AND HE HAS TO CHOOSE SIDES EVEN THOUGH IT DOESN'T MATTER AND EVEN THOUGH ANDERS DOES THE DEED HAWKE GETS THE BLAME WJKWBKGEWKERBQG!

Hawke was never actually important or ever actually on top. He was just a schmuck who always happened to be standing there when stuff happened. Even if the game had been given twice the time and money for development it still would have been deeply flawed.

[Taleroth]

Dragon Age 2 was not a small game. It was a large game with a short development cycle.

Everything it did good would have still been good with reasonable development cycle. Everything it did bad could have been easily avoided.

Sister Petrice (I just tried to have you killed and there's nothing you can about it because I have cutscene protection), Meredith (I'm going to make you do some jobs for me even if you've stated unequivocally that you hate me since the moment you heard my name), and the rebellion (HE'S WORKING FOR MEREDITH, THAT MEANS HE'S WITH HER, GET HIM, wait, maybe we're just reading too much into this, I DON'T CARE, WE'RE CRAZY, KILL EVERYBODY). None of these were good ideas from small scopes.

The world was put into danger twice in the course of Dragon Age 2. Two world wars nearly broke out. It wasn't smaller scale at all, it just wasn't as well designed or written and has less area art.

[Hiemoth]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Angrywolves wrote...

We needed...an outcome dependent on hawke's actions.

There's a lot to disagree with here but I'm going to focus on this statement.

I disagree. The outcome does not need to be dependent on Hawke's actions, if the plot elements are outside of the control of Hawke--or the Warden, or Shepard, or whoever.

It's a great way to have stories that resolve in unpredictable ways, like DA ][ or ME3.

Just wanted to echo in agreement with this.

For example Leandra's death. It is a tragedy because despite Hawke's best efforts, s/he was not able to save her, only to share those last moments with her. It also gives a different background for Hawke's grief and possible guilt. If instead Leandra died despite the possibility for her being saved, then it is not a tragedy, it is a failure on the players part unless the player specifically wanted to kill Leandra. Either way, it is no longer a tragedy, which was what was the motivation for that scene.

[Taleroth]

Hiemoth wrote...

Just wanted to echo in agreement with this.

For example Leandra's death. It is a tragedy because despite Hawke's best efforts, s/he was not able to save her, only to share those last moments with her. It also gives a different background for Hawke's grief and possible guilt. If instead Leandra died despite the possibility for her being saved, then it is not a tragedy, it is a failure on the players part unless the player specifically wanted to kill Leandra. Either way, it is no longer a tragedy, which was what was the motivation for that scene.

Forced characterization of a PC is troublesome for RPGs. What's even more troublesome is when it's achieved by failing the main task halfway into the game.


Hawke was entirely a reactionary figure without agency or motivation. Being shipped from scene to scene expected to just play along because the entire world falls apart should he stop and think about what's happening or why.

[Hiemoth]

I agree with the OP in general sense, although I too would hesitate to call DA2 a smaller game, as it is crazy ambitious, perhaps the term personal tale would be better. As was already listed, there were a lot of transitions in it considering the previous part and a really short development cycle. I think the devs themselves have admitted that it was rushed and they weren't implement everything as well as they wanted. Still, I have a great deal of love for it, for all it succeeds in and for all it tries to do, and really hope that Bioware will again try it's hand in a story like it again despite the negative reaction.

As for Hawke being a weak character, as I have again seen mentioned here many times, I would really argue that. The thing is that every time the Warden went somewhere, s/he basically won with the only thing chosen being who s/he won. Trouble in Sylvanwood? Solved with the alliance they want. Undead in Redcliffe? Now just dead. Often each challenge and lose is a clear choice and thus doesn't have the same tragic impact as it was intentional. In DA2, Hawke, especially the parage Hawke, constantly tries to do their best, to contain the situation and save as many as they can, always losing something in the process. Yet Hawke, despite all those setback and tragedies, can still continue to stand for that they believe in, to survive those test of their ideals, instead of crumbling or faltering in their convictions.

To me, that makes Hawke such a great character and DA2 a great story that can only be achieved via such a personal focus instead of constantly looming grant event.

[Hiemoth]

Taleroth wrote...

Hiemoth wrote...

Just wanted to echo in agreement with this.

For example Leandra's death. It is a tragedy because despite Hawke's best efforts, s/he was not able to save her, only to share those last moments with her. It also gives a different background for Hawke's grief and possible guilt. If instead Leandra died despite the possibility for her being saved, then it is not a tragedy, it is a failure on the players part unless the player specifically wanted to kill Leandra. Either way, it is no longer a tragedy, which was what was the motivation for that scene.

Forced characterization of a PC is troublesome for RPGs. What's even more troublesome is when it's achieved by failing the main task halfway into the game.


Hawke was entirely a reactionary figure without agency or motivation. Being shipped from scene to scene expected to just play along because the entire world falls apart should he stop and think about what's happening or why.

To be truthful, I don't see anyway the Warden is any different in your description or any other character in a cRPG. There are always limitations in how a story can be told. I mean what was the scene in DAO where the Warden just stopped to ponder the deeper nature of the Blight proactively or how to perhaps negotiate a more peaceful solution with Loghain? As for motivation, it was quite clear for Hawke and you could even choose it.

As for failing the main task halfway in the game, I don't actually know what you mean by that? Hawke had earlier tried to unsuccessfully help a templar catch a serial killer, but failed, yes, but neither did the guard or any other faction after them.

[Taleroth]

Hiemoth wrote...

To be truthful, I don't see anyway the Warden is any different in your description or any other character in a cRPG. There are always limitations in how a story can be told. I mean what was the scene in DAO where the Warden just stopped to ponder the deeper nature of the Blight proactively or how to perhaps negotiate a more peaceful solution with Loghain?

How did you get navel gazing out of what I said? It's established immediately after the prologue that the motive is to stop the blight and save Fereldan. And that carries on until the final moments. No pontification of philosophy required.

In Dragon Age 2, the motive is to provide for your family. Then the family becomes wholly irrelevant halfway into the game.

As for motivation, it was quite clear for Hawke and you could even choose it.

It was clear for the first half of the game. It's completely absent after Leandra's death. You get the option to state you're just working to help your family. Then poof, the family is gone.

As for failing the main task halfway in the game, I don't actually know what you mean by that? Hawke had earlier tried to unsuccessfully help a templar catch a serial killer, but failed, yes, but neither did the guard or any other faction after them.

The motive in the first half is to take care of the family. The family dies or is otherwise lost to him. That's a failure of the task.

Modifié par Taleroth, 23 septembre 2013 - 09:13 .

[ianvillan]

Taleroth wrote...

Hiemoth wrote...

To be truthful, I don't see anyway the Warden is any different in your description or any other character in a cRPG. There are always limitations in how a story can be told. I mean what was the scene in DAO where the Warden just stopped to ponder the deeper nature of the Blight proactively or how to perhaps negotiate a more peaceful solution with Loghain?

How did you get navel gazing out of what I said? It's established immediately after the prologue that the motive is to stop the blight and save Fereldan. And that carries on until the final moments. No pontification of philosophy required.

In Dragon Age 2, the motive is to provide for your family. Then the family becomes wholly irrelevant halfway into the game.

As for motivation, it was quite clear for Hawke and you could even choose it.

It was clear for the first half of the game. It's completely absent after Leandra's death. You get the option to state you're just working to help your family. Then poof, the family is gone.

As for failing the main task halfway in the game, I don't actually know what you mean by that? Hawke had earlier tried to unsuccessfully help a templar catch a serial killer, but failed, yes, but neither did the guard or any other faction after them.

The motive in the first half is to take care of the family. The family dies or is otherwise lost to him. That's a failure of the task.

I would say the motive broke down in the prologue in your choosing to go to kirwall a place known for its large and harsh Templar organisation, and your going there because you have a relative who in all likelihood will not welcome you and possibly turn you over to the Templars. surely it would of been best to go to a reasonably close city and then send word to see if your relatives will welcome and protect you.

[Angrywolves]

As usual I disagree with Entropic.
No one likes failure and most people don't relate well to a hero that fails.
Hawke failed because Gaider, in some sort of Greek or Shakespearean moment, must have thought it would be neat to have a hero that failed despite his/ her best efforts.
This however isn't Othello, this is Dragon Age rpg, or at least that's what the fans thought when they bought.
If you're really a Lightning fan, ask yourself how Lightning would have felt about failing.

[Bleachrude]

The fact that Hawke failed _IS_ partly why I think DA2 is a stronger story. For all the comments about Hawke being incompetent, I actually consider Hawke more of an actual realized character than 99% of RPG stars who pretty much have the entire world revolve around them...