131 réponses à ce sujet

[Sir JK]

Ieolus wrote...

What does better gameplay mean?

In this context: Innovation that leads you to make the future games more fun/interesting. Things that challenge you in new ways, that remedy previous faults and replace gameplay that did not deliver what it promised. What an errata is to a book, a patch is to a program and so forth.

If setting and gameplay is truly married. Can you change anything in the gameplay? What implications would that have for the setting?

If the ways spells are cast is changed from one game to the other, have I broken the setting? Even if every player agrees that the new spell system is more fun and challenging? Am I as a designer doomed to keep repeating bad gameplay or abandon my setting?

[Inprea]

I do not approve of lore game play segregation. If my character has the ability to force someone to turn around and stab his friends to death or kill himself in game play that ability should remain during lore scenarios. If my warrior can shrug off a four meter tall ogre smacking her with a war ax she shouldn't be suddenly floored because of a bunch of archers.

That said. If my warrior can take being hit by an ogre I'm going to assume she has some very well enchanted armor. One of the most maddening thing to me is when as a healer I come upon an injured soldier or the like and just stand there while he bleeds to death. I can understand not being able to heal the taint as a spirit healer but a healers response to seeing someone on their dieing breath should be, Heal, "Okay now that you're stable start over from the beginning."

I was pretty annoyed when as a healer at Ostagar I couldn't heal the soldiers in the infirmary.

[Gorguz]

Ieolus wrote...

Get fired up wrote...

Hard to say. I'm usually the sort who easily gets disturbed when lore gets shoved under the rug to make way for fancy gameplay, but if there is a reason as to why this is possible within the lore, and it doesn't feel forced as hell, I'm generally okay with it. A good example is teleporting in the DA universe - in DA2 it was a glaring plothole which made me twitch every time I saw it, but in DA:I we have an explanation as to why it suddenly works in DA:I which doesn't contradict the established lore as far as I know at least (note that it still doesn't explain why it worked in DA2 though!), which makes me feel okay about teleporting in DA:I.

I missed that.  What is the lore explanation for while teleporting works in DA:I?

I'd like to know too

[Lotion Soronarr]

Lokiwithrope wrote...
To you, when is it acceptable to break away from the lore in order to improve gameplay? In addition, when do you draw the line between lore and gameplay segregation, and if you have any, what are some things from the lore you would like to introduce to the gameplay?

KILL IT WITH FIRE!
Whenever possible. Minimize the segregation as much as humanly possible. Then try harder.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Vapaä wrote...

If there weren't any lore/gameplay segregation, DAO would've ended with the not-yet-warden dying from he taint in the Kocari wilds with Alistair

Wait.  Why?

Even if the Warden takes damage in the Wilds (which is not guaranteed), and even if the Warden gets tainted blood in him in the Wilds (which is far from guaranteed), he goes through the Joining that very day, which we have reason to believe can save those who've been infected.

Plus, the Keeper used special magics to slow down the taint.

[CERBERUSDEMAN]

Get fired up wrote...

Hard to say. I'm usually the sort who easily gets disturbed when lore gets shoved under the rug to make way for fancy gameplay, but if there is a reason as to why this is possible within the lore, and it doesn't feel forced as hell, I'm generally okay with it. A good example is teleporting in the DA universe - in DA2 it was a glaring plothole which made me twitch every time I saw it, but in DA:I we have an explanation as to why it suddenly works in DA:I which doesn't contradict the established lore as far as I know at least (note that it still doesn't explain why it worked in DA2 though!), which makes me feel okay about teleporting in DA:I.

I don't fully know what the how they explain teleporting in DA:I but my guess is it has to do with the veil tearing, am I right? Could you tell us the explanation? 

Though it may not be offical some people think the teleporting mages in DA2 was just Varric exaggerating because he doesn't know that mages can't actually teleport or to add some flair to the story.

[Ieolus]

Sir JK wrote...

Ieolus wrote...

What does better gameplay mean?

In this context: Innovation that leads you to make the future games more fun/interesting. Things that challenge you in new ways, that remedy previous faults and replace gameplay that did not deliver what it promised. What an errata is to a book, a patch is to a program and so forth.

If setting and gameplay is truly married. Can you change anything in the gameplay? What implications would that have for the setting?

If the ways spells are cast is changed from one game to the other, have I broken the setting? Even if every player agrees that the new spell system is more fun and challenging? Am I as a designer doomed to keep repeating bad gameplay or abandon my setting?

Well, I guess it comes down to this... was the gameplay actually BAD before?  Or did it just need tweaking?  More fun can be fine, but not at the expense of the lore.  Teleporting rogues and mages?  That might be fun, for some, but it looks stupid for others and breaks the lore.  Just an example.  What do you have in mind as an example?

[Navasha]

The great thing about lore is that it doesn't have to be set in stone. Lore can always be changed, but there does need to be a pretty obvious (preferably in-game) reason why it has done so.

Using an example from a thread yesterday. In the lore, dwarves can't be mages because they have no connection to the fade. However, if say we learn in DA:I that the lost thaig we visited might have been populated by ancient dwarves who DID have magical talents, well, then a pathway is established that the dwarves could have access to magic again if we figure out why they were cut off.

Whats wrong is when there are gameplay changes that violate established lore without ever letting us know the reason why it happened as such.

So if they need to make lore changes to enhance a gameplay aspect, then they should come up with a story reason and let us play out a small quest that explains the changes.

[Sir JK]

Ieolus wrote...

Well, I guess it comes down to this... was the gameplay actually BAD before?  Or did it just need tweaking?  More fun can be fine, but not at the expense of the lore.  Teleporting rogues and mages?  That might be fun, for some, but it looks stupid for others and breaks the lore.  Just an example.  What do you have in mind as an example?

Does it matter? Since we've tied the lore to the gameplay, aren't we per default changing lore if we change gameplay for whatever the reason? Regardless of whether we try to replace bad gameplay or tweak something decent to become better?

I don't really have any example. It's more of a philosophical argument. There's plenty of good reasons to change gameplay... but if gameplay is the basis of the lore... what repercussions will there be? Should I not change gameplay to preserve lore?

[Ieolus]

Sir JK wrote...

Does it matter? Since we've tied the lore to the gameplay, aren't we per default changing lore if we change gameplay for whatever the reason? Regardless of whether we try to replace bad gameplay or tweak something decent to become better? 

I don't really have any example. It's more of a philosophical argument. There's plenty of good reasons to change gameplay... but if gameplay is the basis of the lore... what repercussions will there be? Should I not change gameplay to preserve lore?

Without an example it is pretty hard to have a discussion on this topic.  There are no absolutes in game design, and if something doesn't work, it can change.  You are apt to upset people though if it actually did work and you just are making a change for changes' sake.

[Vapaa]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Even if the Warden takes damage in the Wilds (which is not guaranteed), and even if the Warden gets tainted blood in him in the Wilds (which is far from guaranteed), he goes through the Joining that very day, which we have reason to believe can save those who've been infected.

If not the Warden, or Sten, or Oghren, or Wynne, or Morrigan, etc...

The taint is just a big joke gameplay-wise

[Rawgrim]

Vapaä wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Even if the Warden takes damage in the Wilds (which is not guaranteed), and even if the Warden gets tainted blood in him in the Wilds (which is far from guaranteed), he goes through the Joining that very day, which we have reason to believe can save those who've been infected.

If not the Warden, or Sten, or Oghren, or Wynne, or Morrigan, etc...

The taint is just a big joke gameplay-wise

So is templars needing lyrium, or getting affected by lyrium addiction.

[Sir JK]

Ieolus wrote...

Without an example it is pretty hard to have a discussion on this topic.  There are no absolutes in game design, and if something doesn't work, it can change.  You are apt to upset people though if it actually did work and you just are making a change for changes' sake.

Naturally. That's not what I'm saying though...

What I'm aiming for that gameplay/lore segregation has a point if there's room to improve the gameplay (and the lore for that matter). If they're tied together, then making any change is a messy affair. What if I have a genuinely good reason to change the gameplay? But how do I justify that in the lore? What if it's something so fundamental as the way combat is fought? The way spells are cast? How characters are made?

Is it okay to rewrite an entire setting?

Is it also acceptable that the quality of the gameplay limits the writing of the game?

Is it so important that the game is consistent between gameplay and lore that I cannot touch either?

[Fuggyt]

Discrepancies between lore and gameplay generally make me go "meh." It just doesn't register that much in my consciousness. At the risk of provoking howls of outrage from the many Dragon Age loremasters who frequent these forums, it seems like a tedious exercise in pettifoggery to track down some passing codex entry which contradicts a gameplay experience and then either pillory the developers for inconsistency or demand an immediate fix in the next episode. There will always be such inconsistencies in a video game world that's simultaneously trying to develop a legendarium to support it. For instance, we read about and see blood mages in both DA:O and DA:2 who raise the dead and summon demons to melee on their behalf. These abilities are denied to us when we choose the blood mage specialty. Meh. I like playing these games because they're so immersive, DA:O more so than DA2. They cause my imagination to make up backstory for my PC and invent dialogue between my companions. The lore just gives me more grist to make up head canon about. If I spot something a little off, I just shrug and tell myself a different little story about it. If my little stories don't jibe with somebody else's interpretation, well, it was my forty bucks, too. I've always thought the developers did a pretty good job of integrating gameplay into a world whose details are being built up on the fly and by committee. Thedas is a big, complex, fascinating world to talk about, I grant you. But insofar as it's fiction, it's a metaphor, whose meanings are always in the eyes of the beholders. Never pick at a metaphor, it leaves a nasty scar.

[Bleachrude]

*LOL*

A female elven mage who specializes in blood mage and sells out the slaves to the Tevinters and murders everyone in the Howe estate can use blood magic in their duel with Loghain and simply then be asked by everyone "ok Warden, who should be ruler?".

This is the same game where if you bring up Loghain's selling of slaves AND/OR the fact he freed a blood mage will cause people to turn against Loghain...

[wolfhowwl]

It should be minimized and sometimes it easily can.

For example in lore abominations are fearsome killing machines that slay dozens, yet in DA2 they were chumps that were just a step above your typical Dog Lord trashmob. That would be easily fixed by having better enemy design and designing encounters with quality over quantity in mind.

[Ieolus]

Sir JK wrote...

Ieolus wrote...

Without an example it is pretty hard to have a discussion on this topic.  There are no absolutes in game design, and if something doesn't work, it can change.  You are apt to upset people though if it actually did work and you just are making a change for changes' sake.

Naturally. That's not what I'm saying though...

What I'm aiming for that gameplay/lore segregation has a point if there's room to improve the gameplay (and the lore for that matter). If they're tied together, then making any change is a messy affair. What if I have a genuinely good reason to change the gameplay? But how do I justify that in the lore? What if it's something so fundamental as the way combat is fought? The way spells are cast? How characters are made?

Is it okay to rewrite an entire setting?

Is it also acceptable that the quality of the gameplay limits the writing of the game?

Is it so important that the game is consistent between gameplay and lore that I cannot touch either?

No, it is not okay to rewrite an entire setting.  I think we saw some of that with the backlash after DA2.

I'd love to see an example of the quality of gameplay limiting the writing of a game... of which I think you mean the next game in the series using the existing gameplay as established earlier?

What is the point of establishing lore at all if you just go and upend it for the expediency of "gameplay"?  Why did you write that lore if it hampers you so?  I think if you did such a poor job at the lore part that the gameplay suffers, you made a bad game.

[Sir JK]

Ieolus wrote...

No, it is not okay to rewrite an entire setting.

Why did you write that lore if it hampers you so?  I think if you did such a poor job at the lore part that the gameplay suffers, you made a bad game.

I took out the rest of your post because I wanted to juxtapose these two lines. Remember that I argued against the notion of letting gameplay dictate lore. It was not me writing lore that hampers me, it was my gameplay that hampers my lore. It dictated the setting and thus I have to rewrite the setting if I seek to make improvements to the system.
But as you say... I cannot rewrite the setting on a whim.

Thus I have painted myself into a corner: I wrote the lore so it would never contradict gameplay, but I cannot alter gameplay without contradicting lore. So I cannot make any improvements should I seek to make an expansion or sequel.

Therein lie the problem.

You mentioned earlier that there are no absolutes in game design. This I agree with. In this case, my argument is that you should not let lore lead you to bad gameplay and you should not let gameplay lead to bad lore. They should work in harmony, and when they cannot you should keep them segregated.

[Ieolus]

Sir JK wrote...

You mentioned earlier that there are no absolutes in game design. This I agree with. In this case, my argument is that you should not let lore lead you to bad gameplay and you should not let gameplay lead to bad lore. They should work in harmony, and when they cannot you should keep them segregated. 

My conclusion is different.  Instead of keeping them seperate, you just should not make the game if you messed up that badly.

Modifié par Ieolus, 22 septembre 2013 - 10:49 .

[Rawgrim]

I dunno. It should be an easy to to check with the lore and the setting whenever they think of something kewl, and then see if would make sense adding it. It shouldn`t be too hard to just follow the rules they have laid themselves.

[someguy1231]

Worst part for me is whenever there's a large disparity in power levels between cutscenes and gameplay. This is a big reason why Kai Leng in ME3 was so hated. We could be easily owning him in a bossfight one second, then the next second we'd switch to a cutscene where he's easily overpowering Shepard.

The other bad part is if the player has done something, or is something, that an NPC would consider extremely abhorrent, that NPC knows about it, but never reacts to it or says anything about it. For example, in Fallout: New Vegas, Caesar's Legion is extremely misogynistic, but a female Courier can side with them, and the fact you're a woman is almost never commented upon.

[Bleachrude]

Here's a provocative statement...DA should never have allowed mage as a possible character choice.

It pretty much conditions the player to think that the so-called danger mages are in are exaggerated and that any attempt by the game designers to highlight this is the game writers pandering to one audience or the other...

[Wulfram]

Bleachrude wrote...

Here's a provocative statement...DA should never have allowed mage as a possible character choice.

It pretty much conditions the player to think that the so-called danger mages are in are exaggerated and that any attempt by the game designers to highlight this is the game writers pandering to one audience or the other...

Or they should have only allowed mage as a possible character choice.  That way they could delve into the issues properly.  Or they could have had DA:O be non-mage and DA2 mage.

I'm not sure I really think that, but I could definitely see the advantages.

[KainD]

Fun gameplay can always be made without ever braking lore, ANY lore in any setting.