297 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

billy the squid wrote...
That's a big logical jump. So because there were mrk I-X weapons and upgrades all of it had to go. Weapons, armour types, ammo, gun mods, armour mods, biotic amps, tech amps. Boom,

Mass Effect 2 does have weapon types, it does have ammo (moreso than ME1 had), it does have armour variation, and it does have upgrades. None of those things are gone. If you're going to describe the game at a such a high level, then Bioware didn't change core features. 

The ME1 system was clunky slow and generally a hassle not because it had multiple mods, more because it had endless trash that kept coming up.  

No, the ME1 system was garbage because of the way the power curve worked (and the way the UI worked). 

[In Exile]

Cheylus wrote...
Yes, I think every or most characters you ever played in your life was predefined (i.e. established in advance, limited). What changes and matters is the level of predefinition and what the game makes of that predefinition. 
I don't need more than one codex entry to understand the protagonist is predefined. You're talking about the amount of background a character (i.e. the level of predefinition) has: I'm doing exactly the same thing. You're saying the Dragonborn and the Courrier have a background, which basically means they are predefined, but somehow you can't admit it. Characters are as predefined as the world they live in.

Again: I don't disagree with you. If that's your standard for predefinition - which isn't what people commonly use - then they're all predefined in some sense, with the degree of predefinition varying (very slightly) because some more recent Bioware protagonists have more fleshed out backgrounds (but even that's not true when you look at the BG/BG2 Bhaalspawn, who has as much of a predefined background as Hawke/Shepard/Warden on paper).

Yes, I think Geralt is more predefined than Hawke and Shepard; yes, the Warden felt less predefined than all of them. Yet, I have to add DA or ME does little to nothing to question the hero predefinition. Becoming a Warden predefines your characters; his/her purpose runs in his/her blood; you can't un-do the fact you're limited to be a Warden. The Bhaalspawn is somewhat different because you can write part of his/her background in the game. You can choose an "origin" for Shepard but it has almost no impact on him. His/her very nature is to be a space marine, made to save the day and become the ambassador of humanity. The game really starts with Anderson and Udina choosing his/her fate out loud, and Shepard won't derail from it.

You're wrong. Whatever you "feel" about these characters, by your own standard, you are objectively wrong. You can write whatever nonsense you want about the Bhaalspawn, he or she still grew up knowing the same people, being generally well-regarded by them, raised by Gorion, etc. etc. You can invent what Hawke did at Lothering too because we never see it, but that doesn't mean that Hawke isn't predefined in the same way the Bhaalspawn is. For Shepard, you can actually choose between three backgrounds, so you can have a lot more variance in things like parents (alive or dead?). The Warden gives you a choice between predefined backgrounds, but your backgrounds are very predefined once you pick one (like Mass Effect). 

We can certainly quibble about VO - for lots of people that makes a difference - but in terms of the actual things on paper that are set about the hero, almost all Bioware games are on a similar level and involve far more predefinition than (for example) a Bestheda game. 

Saying that {character creator = not predefined} isn't true. You can change Geralt's hair and clothes by the way, that won't make him less predefined. That's the same with genre, noses, lips, and eye colors. Saints Row characters are predefined. Having the choice of a background in the beginning of the game doesn't make your character magically "un-predefined", it makes him less predefined at best.  

This just kind of shows the problem with your standard: even if you say everything is predefined, if you admit there are degrees of predefinition, we're argoung about the same thing with different labels: predefined vs. not predefined or not very predefined and very predefined. 

[Cheylus]

Again: I don't disagree with you. If that's your standard for predefinition - which isn't what people commonly use

I don't know what predefinition means if it's not how the authors create a character before the player can make something out of it -- how the characters are pre-established, limited, determined by the authors before the player.

I'm arguing against people who think they define their characters by choosing his haircut, against people saying that "Shepard (and Hawke) isn't pre-defined at all" and against others who dislike TW because it has a "predefined" character. I quoted your post because, as you understood, we seemed to agree with each other for the most part.

You can write whatever nonsense you want about the Bhaalspawn [...] For Shepard, you can actually choose between three backgrounds, so you can have a lot more variance in things like parents (alive or dead?). The Warden gives you a choice between predefined backgrounds, but your backgrounds are very predefined once you pick one (like Mass Effect).

I don't know where I said something different; I don't know then how I'm wrong. True or false, I said the Warden felt less predefined to me. I'm well aware that it's just good writing and design -- the "origins" feature.

This just kind of shows the problem with your standard: even if you say everything is predefined, if you admit there are degrees of predefinition, we're argoung about the same thing with different labels: predefined vs. not predefined or not very predefined and very predefined.

Good, you're clever enough to understand every character is predefined, if I understand correctly. That's not the case with everyone around here. What stuns me most is people who didn't like TW because it has a "predefined character unlike Mass Effect and Dragon Age". I've read that countless times, it's not a valid argument. 
If you can hate or love a character (some people hate Hawke or Shepard), it simply reveals he is predefined.

[Jestina]

Witcher is just an action game, plain and simple. You're just following along with where the author wants to go with his character. Tagging RPG onto the game is laughable.

[GenericEnemy]

Jestina wrote...

Witcher is just an action game, plain and simple. You're just following along with where the author wants to go with his character. Tagging RPG onto the game is laughable.

ah, that explains why choices matter far more in TW2 than BioWare or pretty much any other 'choice reactive' game as of late then...

[Jestina]

GenericEnemy wrote...
ah, that explains why choices matter far more in TW2 than BioWare or pretty much any other 'choice reactive' game as of late then...

If you took all the action games out of the RPG category, it would be pretty bare. Most major developers stopped making RPG's a long time ago. 

[GenericEnemy]

and if you were to do that, from your POV, what would be left in the 'RPG' category? enlighten me. 

Modifié par GenericEnemy, 14 décembre 2013 - 08:08 .

[Blooddrunk1004]

Jestina wrote...

Witcher is just an action game, plain and simple. You're just following along with where the author wants to go with his character. Tagging RPG onto the game is laughable.

Replace Witcher with Mass Effect and i'l agree with you.

[In Exile]

Cheylus wrote...
I don't know what predefinition means if it's not how the authors create a character before the player can make something out of it -- how the characters are pre-established, limited, determined by the authors before the player.

Well, I'd quibble and say that predefinition is about how many background characteritics, pre-exisitng relationships, personality traits, beliefs, etc. the desginers imbue, but overall I wouldn't object to your definition. 

I'm arguing against people who think they define their characters by choosing his haircut, against people saying that "Shepard (and Hawke) isn't pre-defined at all" and against others who dislike TW because it has a "predefined" character. I quoted your post because, as you understood, we seemed to agree with each other for the most part.

Choosing appearance, though, is an important part of creating your own character. You're conflating four things here: (i) the set voice; (ii) the set appearance; (iii) the set beliefs; and (iv) the set respones. If we keep (i)-(iii) constant but change (iv), we've actually showing alternate sides the same character (because you can respond differently). If you keep (i)-(ii) but change (iii)-(iv) you have alternative world versions - like an AU Superman who wants to be space dictator instead of hero. If you change (i)-(iii) then you've changed almost everything fundamental about a person - two people can sound the same and yet be entirely different in every meaningful respect. 

For a lot of users, the ability to imagine in their head - despite the overwhleming clarity of context negating everything they believe about what they're doing - the voice of their character is the difference between predefined and not.

But even if that's a justified driver of subjective experience - and evne if it's true that it's the biggest factor - the fact remains that two characters aren't the same level of predefined when you swap one of those factors out. Especially if set apperance captures something like "gender" or "(fantasy) race". 

I don't know where I said something different; I don't know then how I'm wrong. True or false, I said the Warden felt[/u] less predefined to me. I'm well aware that it's just good writing and design -- the "origins" feature. 

Whether or not the Warden feels more or less predefined doesn't change how predefined the Warden is, as a matter of fact, in comparison to other Bioware protagonists. If you define 'predefinition' in terms of whatever features the writers keep fixed, then any version of the Warden (going off any origin) has the same number of 'preset' features as Hawke does. Or Shepard, for that matter. 

Where the debate really gets off the ground is VO - and like I said that turns on an entirely unsupportable assumption about how conversations work in the absence of VO in a game.

If you can hate or love a character (some people hate Hawke or Shepard), it simply reveals he is predefined.

I'm not sure how that follows. I can certainly say I dislike all possible variants of the Warden, so does that mean that the Warden must be predefined? Does it have to be "a lot" of people who think this? I don't see how the standard works. 

Modifié par In Exile, 14 décembre 2013 - 09:24 .

[Nordicus]

Jestina wrote...
Deus Ex is just an action game, plain and simple. You're just following along with where the author wants to go with his character. Tagging RPG onto the game is laughable.

You have a point there

[Il Divo]

GenericEnemy wrote...

and if you were to do that, from your POV, what would be left in the 'RPG' category? enlighten me. 

We'd probably all be playing Baldur's Gate 1, sadly.

[Eternal Phoenix]

Il Divo wrote...

GenericEnemy wrote...

and if you were to do that, from your POV, what would be left in the 'RPG' category? enlighten me. 

We'd probably all be playing Baldur's Gate 1, sadly.

And Planescape, Icewind Dale, Fallout 1&2, Divine Divinity, Arcanum, Ultima Series, Wizardry Series, Pool of Radiance, Dragonlance Series, Neverwinter Night series and (the list goes on).

[Il Divo]

Elton John is dead wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

GenericEnemy wrote...

and if you were to do that, from your POV, what would be left in the 'RPG' category? enlighten me. 

We'd probably all be playing Baldur's Gate 1, sadly.

And Planescape, Icewind Dale, Fallout 1&2, Divine Divinity, Arcanum, Ultima Series, Wizardry Series, Pool of Radiance, Dragonlance Series, Neverwinter Night series and (the list goes on).

Exactly my point. Short of Planescape and Fallout 2 which are amazing, I'd rank most of these other games far below even your modern RPG.

Modifié par Il Divo, 14 décembre 2013 - 11:40 .

[Costin_Razvan]

Jestina wrote...

Witcher is just an action game, plain and simple. You're just following along with where the author wants to go with his character. Tagging RPG onto the game is laughable.

Absolutely you are correct and only games where you can change your looks are proper RPGs.

Because remember boys and girls a game is only an RPG if it allows you to pick between a dick and a vagina and skin palletes.

[Liamv2]

I think people are forgetting the difference between a CRPG and an ARPG.

[Fast Jimmy]

You're wrong. Whatever you "feel" about these characters, by your own standard, you are objectively wrong. You can write whatever nonsense you want about the Bhaalspawn, he or she still grew up knowing the same people, being generally well-regarded by them, raised by Gorion, etc. etc. You can invent what Hawke did at Lothering too because we never see it, but that doesn't mean that Hawke isn't predefined in the same way the Bhaalspawn is. For Shepard, you can actually choose between three backgrounds, so you can have a lot more variance in things like parents (alive or dead?). The Warden gives you a choice between predefined backgrounds, but your backgrounds are very predefined once you pick one (like Mass Effect).

I'll hop in here late and also point out that background doesn't determine personality.

DA:O and ME1 let you choose what happened in your character's past... but it didn't drive ehat your character thought about that past, or how it affected their present. The Sole Survivor background says that Shep survived a horrible event. This means that when you encounter the other soldier that lived througn the event and was experimented on by Cereberus, you know him. How your Shep feels about this, however, is not defined. You can act vengeful that you and your old team were set up, or you can be forgiving about it. You are defining your character through the template presented by the background, your character isn't further defined for you by having feelings and emotions tied to those past events.

Geralt not only has a set background, but also has pretty defined feelings, about past events, about people he's met and about situations he's been in. That's not just a set history, but also set perosnality about those past events.

It may seem like a slight distinction, but it winds up resulting in a different player experience.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Liamv2 wrote...

I think people are forgetting the difference between a CRPG and an ARPG.

I actually don't know what CRPGs and ARPGs are. All I can recognize are JRPGs and WRPGs!

[Dreadstruck]

Costin_Razvan wrote...

Jestina wrote...

Witcher is just an action game, plain and simple. You're just following along with where the author wants to go with his character. Tagging RPG onto the game is laughable.

Absolutely you are correct and only games where you can change your looks are proper RPGs.

Because remember boys and girls a game is only an RPG if it allows you to pick between a dick and a vagina and skin palletes.

Agreed.

[slimgrin]

I like to customize a character as much as anyone, but insisting on it means I'd miss out on quality games. It's overrated really. I wish there were more predefined characters in RPG's with a general set of values and a history. The emphasis can then be on how events in the plot change according to your actions, and less on traditional D&D alignments types.

Modifié par slimgrin, 14 décembre 2013 - 03:28 .

[Nordicus]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Geralt not only has a set background, but also has pretty defined feelings, about past events, about people he's met and about situations he's been in. That's not just a set history, but also set perosnality about those past events.

Not really that much more defined than Shepard's.

One of the strongest aspects in Witcher 1 was that you, the player, were constantly in control of how Geralt should deal with his past that he does not remember. You could pursue to uncover your history and try to be the kind of person you used to, live in the moment, think deeply whether you past history is best forgotten or any mix of these.

There was a journal for these uncovered aspects of your former self, and every single entry posed a question to the player of how they should deal with what they've learned, rather than explicitly state "this is who you are". On top of that, there are several moments where you're just sitting around in a bar, with Dandelion, Zoltan or whoever, asking you how you feel about your current situation.

The game wasn't going to make any decisions for you.

Now, in Witcher 2, Geralt's past has a more important role. Despite this, what you do with Letho is entirely up to you, and it is Triss who actually pushes the importance of finding your lost memories and Yennefer. You're given several moments throughout the game to say that you really don't care.

Modifié par Nordicus, 14 décembre 2013 - 04:11 .

[RobRam10]

Kaiser Arian wrote...

Liamv2 wrote...

I think people are forgetting the difference between a CRPG and an ARPG.

I actually don't know what CRPGs and ARPGs are. All I can recognize are JRPGs and WRPGs!

dun dun dun DUN DUN DUN!

[Dutchess]

Nordicus wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Geralt not only has a set background, but also has pretty defined feelings, about past events, about people he's met and about situations he's been in. That's not just a set history, but also set perosnality about those past events.

Not really that much more defined than Shepard's.

One of the strongest aspects in Witcher 1 was that you, the player, were constantly in control of how Geralt should deal with his past that he does not remember. You could pursue to uncover your history and try to be the kind of person you used to, live in the moment, think deeply whether you past history is best forgotten or any mix of these.

There was a journal for these uncovered aspects of your former self, and every single entry posed a question to the player of how they should deal with what they've learned, rather than explicitly state "this is who you are". On top of that, there are several moments where you're just sitting around in a bar, with Dandelion, Zoltan or whoever, asking you how you feel about your current situation.

The game wasn't going to make any decisions for you.

Now, in Witcher 2, Geralt's past has a more important role. Despite this, what you do with Letho is entirely up to you, and it is Triss who actually pushes the importance of finding your lost memories and Yennefer. You're given several moments throughout the game to say that you really don't care.

This. Now that I'm thinking about it, I believe that Witcher 1 allowed much more important choices that shaped Geralt's identity. The debate about how predefined they are aside, most often the choices the warden, Hawke and Shepard could make boiled down to "I'm nice and do what is right" or "I'm mean, so I do this". By roleplaying, you can come up with more elaborate thoughts about these characters' motivations and the thoughts behind their actions, but you get very little chance to ever express them in the game itself. With Geralt, however, you get to chose how he views the world and himself. Does he side with the elves or the knights? And why? Because he agrees with the ideals of the freedom-fighting squirrels, or because he can sympathize, being an outcast himself? Or does he take his purpose as a witcher literally, with a duty to protect humans, even from those who only differ in the shape of the auricle? You not only get to think about this behind your screen, the game gives you the opportunity to express this sense of morality. I think those are very important roleplaying choices, and they should not be dismissed because the words are always coming out of the mouth of a grey-haired grandpa.

Because the second game focuses on Geralt actually regaining his memory, the quest about who he is and what his purpose is becomes less important. Still, you get to follow up on some of your ideals again, and are sometimes questioned about those decisions and what they mean to you.

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I'll hop in here late and also point out that background doesn't determine personality.

...

It may seem like a slight distinction, but it winds up resulting in a different player experience.

Oh, I complete agree. I do think that Geralt is very different. It's just that I don't think - on paper, beside subjective feelings people have about VO and freedom - that Shepard differs from the Warden or the Bhaalspawn in terms of predefinition. 

[Fast Jimmy]

In Exile wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I'll hop in here late and also point out that background doesn't determine personality.

...

It may seem like a slight distinction, but it winds up resulting in a different player experience.

Oh, I complete agree. I do think that Geralt is very different. It's just that I don't think - on paper, beside subjective feelings people have about VO and freedom - that Shepard differs from the Warden or the Bhaalspawn in terms of predefinition. 

ME1 I'd agree with you. ME2 I would do so as well, but with maybe some grumbling. But by ME3, we'd have to debate.

As I laid out, it isn't entirely about history, but assumed emotion abkut said history that begins creating a set, defined protagonist. ME3 Shephard feels sad about Thessia, he feels traumatized by the boy that died, he believes the Alliance is the only solution and that Cereberus is terrible. He's friends with Garrus, he's very close with Liara and he's impressed enough with Vega to give hik the time of day, despite  many other Alliance marines on his ship. 

I understand the story-telling purpose to all of these things, but it doesn't change the fact that Shephard has a lot of his own opinions about has haplened and is currently happening to him. Opinions the player can only color, not outright direct or change. That's much less defined than the bhaalspawn or Warden.