349 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
I can enjoy these types of things in more passive media. But I've literally been expereincing this through my gaming experience, which makes the player the one involved with the activity, instead of just watching it on screen, now for decades. Sure, there wasn't overt romance scenes, but we all saved the princess in castle in Super Mario brothers... or saved the princess in the castle in Zelda. To me, Liara coming into my cabin and saying "we're all depending on you, Shephard... I'm going to make holograms in case we all die that will talk about how great you are that will play tens of thousands of years from now" is in a close enough neighborhood for me to, again, say... "yawn."

I'm actually in the minority of people who don't quite see the fuss in a Zelda or Mario game, but yes, I understand your point. 

I've never cared for, well, most human-interest stories in passive media. They're just so boring for me. Whenever a story tries to say something meaningful about the human condition - which usually always amounts to some aesop about powerlesness - I just yawn and lose interest. I'd hate that even more in active media - because all of a sudden I'm thrust in a situation where I'm supposed to be active but I can't do anything I'd do, and then personal incongruity just makes me lose interest even faster. 

[Fast Jimmy]

It's also worth pointing out, in accordance with Bioware's trend, that some of the most terrible offenses in the "power fantasy" category are not a single person being infatuated with you, but rather a single person having the power to decide the Dwarves future and the use of golems, or to decide the fate of the supposed ashes of the heroine of the world's leading religious organization, or how about the main character deciding who will be the king of the game world's countries--and whether that king gets into a marriage of convenience.

That's far, far more pandering than 3 or 4 other humans (or elves, or dwarves, or turians, whatever) all being into the PC.

True; this is undeniable. But you know what? Those big level choices, that make the player feel they are deciding the currents of history... those are some of the best choices a game can give (provided they are done right). Mostly because I think it evokes some of the strongest forms of ethical dilemas.

Is that power fantasy? I'd argue it's not as blatant as characters throwing themselves at your feet, begging to hop in the sack with you (espeically with some of DA2's rivalmances, where you insult everything about their core tenets and beliefs) just because you are SO AWESOME. But it is easily a case that could be made and won. But do these big choices explore the story and the setting more? ABSOLUTELY.

Deciding the fate of the Anvil, or giving the player the option to save the ashes fornthe world, hide hek in obscurity, defile them in an arcane ritual... or naming a king or two... these all not only require (nay, demand) an understanding of the basic setting and story factors at play but they also engage the player in that setting. Changing the course of history once is great, twice is even better... but when it happens a lot in a game, a player can become engaged at a hyper-vigiliant level, where every detail is absorbed and paid attention to, because you never know what might come up and play a big choice for your character.

This is why, of course, I am against the implementation of the Save Import. Simply because choices that big, choices where the player truly feels they are making changes to the very world they exist in, are absolutely, stunningly great if pulled off correctly. The problem is that with the Save Import system, they CANNOT be done this way - simply because you can't tell the player they are changing the world and then not give them a different world based on that choice. Saying "well, here is this huge choice and you can make a decision... but it will ultimately have no real effect" can work once or twice to give the player a nice dose of reality, but as a general rule of thumb, it becomes extremely disillusioning for the player. Such that it comes to the point of "why are you even asking me? It doesn't matter what my character does anyway" can easily become the mindset.

I know people push for smaller, more personal choices, but even these become ludicrous to implement, as they usually involve dead characters, or NPCs that take different paths with their lives, or (the dreaded) "who did I romance" type decisions. And even these small-scale changes are hard to accomodate or acknowledge, let alone provide content for outside of cameos and codex entries.

Point being - big changes engage the player in big ways. And, while I know we disagree on the kevel of consequences such choices should have, EA, I also know that you can only say "the choice matters more than the consequence" a certain number of times in a game before the player experinces burnout... quite rapidly.

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Is that power fantasy? I'd argue it's not as blatant as characters throwing themselves at your feet, begging to hop in the sack with you (espeically with some of DA2's rivalmances, where you insult everything about their core tenets and beliefs) just because you are SO AWESOME. But it is easily a case that could be made and won. But do these big choices explore the story and the setting more? ABSOLUTELY.  

.
I think it's much more of a power fantasy. Much more blatant. Because it's not just one person being intoxicated with you because of features we can all agree could be very attractive - power, charisma, success, etc. - but people letting a complete stranger decide the entire fate of their society because of how awesome at killing they are. 

That's - to me - so much more incredibly shallow and contrived. Especially when you basically stumble from world-ending and society-changing conflict basically day-to-day or week-to-week in the timespan of these games. 

[Fast Jimmy]

Yet that's the nature of (most) games. You are the epicenter of events. You arrive at every location right as events are coming to a head, one way or the other. I'm not pulling a David and saying games HAVE to work this, only that most do.

However, the difference in a choice driven game is that instead of swooping in and saving the day, as the case with most games, the player instead swoops in and finds that the reason conflict exists is valid. That it's not a random monster beast killing for ultimate power, but a valid (if warped) cause that requires the player to step back and think, if even just for a minute.

The Anvil is a good example. Up to that point, you had heard that the Anvil was a great weapon, able to forge armies of golems more powerful than any soldier and which served to give the dwarves one of the largest empires in Thedas at one point. Yet, upon discovering it, we find that the Paragon we were sent to find, Branka, has knowingly and purposefully sacrificed the lives and the humanity in order to obtain this relic. And, on top of that, we have the Anvil's maker, who tells us it wasn't lost to the ravages of time or the darkspawn, but was deliberately hidden because of its hideous nature.

So Branka makes the case - since the loss of the Anvil, the Darkspawn have take iver every stitch of their former empire, leaving only one city leff, which holds on by the narrowest of margins. Caridan makes his case - the Anvil is too powerful for one king to control, and it is too terrible of a price to not only sacrifice the life, but the very soul, of the golem convert.

Is the soul of a hundred dwarves worth the continued safety and existence of thousands? Is the chance to help fight back and contain the darkspawn? Do you trust Branka to use the Anvil safely? Do you trust the king you will elect to? Do you think even one soul teisted for such a purpose is too much to compromise? Do you think of how golems may be a great service to your cause in fighting the Blight? Do you risk angering the king you appoint for destroying an avenue for power for them?

These questions hardly seem like a "power fantasy." It seems like the person who has slagged through a small army of Darkspawn would be someone who can hold their own in a fight, yes, and therefore should not be crossed unless absolutely neccessary. But that's a conceit on a game based on combat - the better you are at the gameplay, the more things you kill quickly.

But this type of power fantasy, if that's what we want to call it, still explores the deeper concepts of the setting, including history, the laws of magic, the political structures in play and the character writing of very significant NPCs. That's a much more effective use of a power fantasy mechanism than "I can spit on everything you find significant in this world and it will only change wheter or not we have anger sex or are tender in our love making." That's an ultimate power-fantasy/player character conceit.

[Seagloom]

simfamSP wrote...

I'd be 100% with you if the narratives weren't stretched across a few months/a year for most of their titles. But I can see that DA2 suffered from a lack of depth when it came to this. The ME trilogy also falls short to a certain point, but I enjoy how the relationships develop from simply fun to commitment and then to love. They are niche story-arcs seeing that they are optional content.

Yes, as I noted in my previous post they can be entertaining, but tend to ultimately lack depth and meaning. The quality simply isn't there, and as long as they remain stagnant I see it as a questionable use of resources.

simfamSP wrote...

I see what you mean, but what exactly would you label these boxes as? I can't agree to the notion that every romanceible characters falls into a 'BioWare Cliche' but they *do* fall under similar development patterns.

The box is most romances fall into the pattern of flirting to helping an NPC with personal baggage, to declaration of love and/or sex. There are minor variations, but they all fall into similar pattern and tend to have happy endings within the framework of the game they are presented in. The romance will often supercede other character traits so it can hit all those checkpoints on its way to a payoff. It makes them come off more as slight variations in a template to account for differences between characters; rather than characters who redefine what that template is due to their nature.

simfamSP wrote...

I agree, but I think we must remember that in the end, they are optional. These two arcs are mandatory to the narrative. I know I used Kreia before as an example, but thinking about it, they are rather instrumental to the plot.

An improvement on this would be writing romances so that they are also crucial to the plot. I have no idea how it would be done given the flexibility of RPG narratives, but it can be done.

This would ultimately lead to less options, however, and so it falls under the "you can't please everyone" category.

They shouldn't try to please everyone. And I write this as a pansexual person who wants to see stuff like same-sex content. I think there should be a balance between telling the kind of story one wishes to tell, and what players will find fun and engaging content. Besides, pleasing everyone is impossible. It doesn't matter if you have four options or fifty. Someone out there will still feel left out.

I thought DAO handled weaving romances into the plot decently with Alistair, and to a lesser extent, Morrigan. Romancing Alistair while deciding his fate led to a minefield that forced invested players to make tough choices. In some cases, it forced them to make a sacrifice for their happy ending. In others, it robbed them of it. Alistair's romance was worked fluidly into the plot without overtaking it.

Where it failed was the execution leading up to it being the usual by the numbers fare. The gift giving approval system also diminished it greatly prior to the Landsmeet stuff. Still, it showed potential. I don't expect perfection from any game, but it's always nice to see small steps forward from previous titles in a studio's lineup. Unfortunately every BioWare romance since then has either taken steps backward or tried a similar approach to Alistair/Morrigan with what I feel are less impactful results.

Optional doesn't need to mean shallow. It also doesn't need to mean it has no impact on the main plot. That's a bigger issue with RPG storytelling, however. Far too much compartmentalization between events. There are times when it makes sense, and times where it doesn't. The default devs seem to follow is it usually doesn't, even in cases where I personally believe it should. Although I suppose there's only so much you can do with limited resources and time constraints.

When it comes to Obsidian specifically, I hold little hope the quality of their romances will ever reach a point where it won't feel like a waste. Partly from the apathy of their writers toward that content and partly due to their past attempts. BioWare probably can get there someday, if they tried. I just don't know if they're really interested in trying.

Modifié par Seagloom, 15 décembre 2013 - 09:52 .

[Urgon]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Maybe I’d explore it after a “loving” relationship crashed and burned, and one or both was killed in the aftermath enough for them to see if it had really been worth it spending the last few years of their physical existence chained to each other in a dance of human misery and/or a plateau of soul-killing compromise.

Or maybe I’d explore a veteran’s love affair with his craft of murder and allowing souls to be freed to travel beyond their bleeding shell,

or a Cipher’s obsession with plucking the emotions of deep-rooted souls to try and see what makes people attracted to each other beyond their baser instincts and discovers love... specifically, his love of manipulating others." -- Chris Avellone

Have to say--statements like these don't sound like someone who legitimately is indifferent to romances, but rather someone who's significantly bitter about them. Especially that first one.

I don't know the man, and I'm no big fan of Bioware romances, but "chained to each other in a dance of human misery and/or a plateau of soul-killing compromise"? That seems...extreme.

Avellone doesn't like happy endings in general, he is more to the bittersweet or outright tragic end of the spectrum in his story preferences

Modifié par Urgon, 15 décembre 2013 - 11:52 .

[Seagloom]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Have to say--statements like these don't sound like someone who legitimately is indifferent to romances, but rather someone who's significantly bitter about them. Especially that first one.

I don't know the man, and I'm no big fan of Bioware romances, but "chained to each other in a dance of human misery and/or a plateau of soul-killing compromise"? That seems...extreme.

I don't know if he was being entirely serious with all of that. I'm going to post his whole response to provide better context.

---

You've stated in the past that you don't like romances in games—at least to the extent that they've been done in games thus far. Were you to implement a romance subplot in Project Eternity, what would it involve?

"Not a big fan of romances. I did four in Alpha Protocol because Chris Parker, our project director, demanded it because he thinks romance apparently is easy, or MAYBE it’s because he wanted to be an **** and give me tons of them to do because I LOVE them so much (although to be honest, I think he felt it was more in keeping with the spy genre to have so many romances, even if I did ask to downscope them). At least I got to do the “hatemance” version of most of them, which makes it a little more palatable.

Also, the only reason the romance bits in Mask of the Betrayer worked was because George Ziets helped me with them since he was able to describe what love is to me and explain how it works (I almost asked for a PowerPoint presentation). It seems like a messy, complicated process, not unlike a waterbirth. Don’t even get me started on the kissing aspects, which is revolting because people EAT with their mouths. Bleh.

So if I were to implement a romance subplot in Eternity - I wouldn’t. I’d examine interpersonal relationships from another angle and I wouldn’t confine it to love and romance. Maybe I’d explore it after a “loving” relationship crashed and burned, and one or both was killed in the aftermath enough for them to see if it had really been worth it spending the last few years of their physical existence chained to each other in a dance of human misery and/or a plateau of soul-killing compromise. Or maybe I’d explore a veteran’s love affair with his craft of murder and allowing souls to be freed to travel beyond their bleeding shell, or a Cipher’s obsession with plucking the emotions of deep-rooted souls to try and see what makes people attracted to each other beyond their baser instincts and discovers love... specifically, his love of manipulating others. You could build an entire dungeon and quest where he devotes himself to replicating facsimiles of love, reducer a Higher Love to a baser thing and using NPCs he encounters as puppets for his experimentations, turning something supposedly beautiful into something filthy, mechanical, but surrounded by blank-eyed soul-twisted drones echoing all the hollow Disney-like platitudes and fairy tale existence where everyone lives happily ever after." --Chris Avellone

Modifié par Seagloom, 15 décembre 2013 - 12:32 .

[Urgon]

reducer a Higher Love to a baser thing and using NPCs he encounters as puppets for his experimentations, turning something supposedly beautiful into something filthy, mechanical, but surrounded by blank-eyed soul-twisted drones echoing all the hollow Disney-like platitudes and fairy tale existence where everyone lives happily ever after.

Best description of the BSN i have ever read

[bussinrounds]

Leave it to BSN to turn this into another romance thread ffs.

[Angrywolves]

Seagloom wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

Have to say--statements like these don't sound like someone who legitimately is indifferent to romances, but rather someone who's significantly bitter about them. Especially that first one.

I don't know the man, and I'm no big fan of Bioware romances, but "chained to each other in a dance of human misery and/or a plateau of soul-killing compromise"? That seems...extreme.

I don't know if he was being entirely serious with all of that. I'm going to post his whole response to provide better context.

---

You've stated in the past that you don't like romances in games—at least to the extent that they've been done in games thus far. Were you to implement a romance subplot in Project Eternity, what would it involve?

"Not a big fan of romances. I did four in Alpha Protocol because Chris Parker, our project director, demanded it because he thinks romance apparently is easy, or MAYBE it’s because he wanted to be an **** and give me tons of them to do because I LOVE them so much (although to be honest, I think he felt it was more in keeping with the spy genre to have so many romances, even if I did ask to downscope them). At least I got to do the “hatemance” version of most of them, which makes it a little more palatable.

Also, the only reason the romance bits in Mask of the Betrayer worked was because George Ziets helped me with them since he was able to describe what love is to me and explain how it works (I almost asked for a PowerPoint presentation). It seems like a messy, complicated process, not unlike a waterbirth. Don’t even get me started on the kissing aspects, which is revolting because people EAT with their mouths. Bleh.

So if I were to implement a romance subplot in Eternity - I wouldn’t. I’d examine interpersonal relationships from another angle and I wouldn’t confine it to love and romance. Maybe I’d explore it after a “loving” relationship crashed and burned, and one or both was killed in the aftermath enough for them to see if it had really been worth it spending the last few years of their physical existence chained to each other in a dance of human misery and/or a plateau of soul-killing compromise. Or maybe I’d explore a veteran’s love affair with his craft of murder and allowing souls to be freed to travel beyond their bleeding shell, or a Cipher’s obsession with plucking the emotions of deep-rooted souls to try and see what makes people attracted to each other beyond their baser instincts and discovers love... specifically, his love of manipulating others. You could build an entire dungeon and quest where he devotes himself to replicating facsimiles of love, reducer a Higher Love to a baser thing and using NPCs he encounters as puppets for his experimentations, turning something supposedly beautiful into something filthy, mechanical, but surrounded by blank-eyed soul-twisted drones echoing all the hollow Disney-like platitudes and fairy tale existence where everyone lives happily ever after." --Chris Avellone

Makes me wonder what kind of person Avellone is. Seems more like a robot than as human being.
Still, I want this game regardless.
I don't care if it doesn't have a romance.
I wonder if , again mods will be possible.
My suspicion is probably but too early to tell.
Eh, not every rpg needs to have romances, even the vanilla type.
<_<

[Urgon]

Angrywolves wrote...

Makes me wonder what kind of person Avellone is. Seems more like a robot than as human being.

Not even close. Watch interviews of him. He is the most charismatic and funny game dev i have ever seen. i
Josh Sawyer is the robot one in Obsidian

[Angrywolves]

If so, he mustn't have much of a love life imo.
Still, if I had Warren Buffet or Bill Gates money I would buy Obsidian and yes I would ask him to do romances.rotfl

[Seagloom]

Honestly, I think Avellone's words from that interview are being taken a bit too literally. After having read several interviews and blog entries over the years, I was never left with the impression he is some sort of emotionally broken robot-man. >.<

Modifié par Seagloom, 15 décembre 2013 - 11:50 .

[Fast Jimmy]

EntropicAngel wrote...

That's exactly why games need to be more like DA ][.

(not a joke)

DA ][ has characters who move with their own motivations and Hawke, for the most part, has little say over what happens.

The only way Hawke can get Isabella to return to Kirkwall willingly is if she is starting to love him. Otherwise, it's just out of his hands. There's no magical "persuade" or red/blue button to make the Arishock, or Orsino, or Meredith, back down (granted, Meredith/Orsino's phase change was silly in and of itself, but it DID show a character who wasn't defined by the protag). Hawke can't magically stop the MxT war.

At best, Hawke can influence things. That's how it should be. Not DA:O's style [and definitely not ME's style, unless they sucessfully set up circumstances where the PC is the only one around to determine a fate (compare the rachni queen to the Dwarven king--as stupid as it was that you couldn't keep it in captivity for the moment, at least it wasn't a case of way more capable people BEING THERE and saying "yeah, I trust this stranger with the future of our species.")].

...I'll admit, I made that first comment knowing it would get your interest, Jimmy

Sorry that it didn't grab my attention until now, then. 

DA2's characters are interesting in that they work and operate with completely their own motivations and agency - Isabella, Merril and Anders are all pretty good examples of this - but there is some real problems with this, as well.

For instance, the game assumes the player wouldn't want to help Isabella recover the Tome and leave Kirkwall. It assumes we want to stay and defend the city, when it would have been just as valid (if not entirely functional from a game perspective) to want to chase and then run away with Isabella, enjoying the life of of riches such a treasure would be worth. 

But, in all of these cases, there is no choice ever presented. There are variable outcomes based on the companions approval levels, but the player never makes any sort of official call in many of these events. Which, while a cool concept that our companions would have actions and lives of their owns, winds up making the actions of Hawke seem totally ancillary to those of his companions. Isabella has much more to do with the plot of Act 2 than Hawke does. And Anders' actions in Act 3 drive the narrative there more than any choice by the PC. 

I understand that they wanted to create a setting where the player had to experience a slow descent into madness by an entire city, but it winds up mkaing the other character's descents more the story than Hawke really being much importance to anything, except the guy/gal who kills everything as a way to mop up.

[Maria Caliban]

I liked it better when Obsidian was making its own stuff instead of BioWare's games.

I'd rather have Alpha Protocol 2 than BG 2.0.

[Angrywolves]

Obsidian doesn't own the Alpha Protocol IP.I think Sega does.

Angel said:

At best, Hawke can influence things. That's how it should be.

uh no.That was the worst thing about the game imo.It didn't matter what hawke did, he was doomed to fail anyway.
Players want their Protagonist to succeed.

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
For instance, the game assumes the player wouldn't want to help Isabella recover the Tome and leave Kirkwall. It assumes we want to stay and defend the city, when it would have been just as valid (if not entirely functional from a game perspective) to want to chase and then run away with Isabella, enjoying the life of of riches such a treasure would be worth.  

But Bioware games - and story-driven RPGs in general - always assume this. And it's a brutal sort of rail-roading. It's just that most players roll characters that are totally in line with the boderline fanatical dedication to epic-level heroism that's required, even when the quest is insane and serves no purpose whatsoever. 

A great example of this being the Sacred Ashes quest, where you're effectively trolled (as the player) by Sten when he calls out the Warden on how stupid the move is (and can't agree with him, or point that out to anyone). "Yes, Isolde/Teagan, the corpse of the Chantry's prophet in the middle of the actual apocalypse is a great idea and has no downside whatsoever!". 

I understand that they wanted to create a setting where the player had to experience a slow descent into madness by an entire city, but it winds up mkaing the other character's descents more the story than Hawke really being much importance to anything, except the guy/gal who kills everything as a way to mop up.

That's what you always are in a Bioware (and really, any isometric) RPG: a machine effectively crafted by nature (or god, or whatever) to kill and murder things. The Warden solves every single problem through massive amounts of killing (and eventually someone at the end maybe deciding that suicidally attacking you isn't the best idea and talking it out). 

Landsmeet? Massive amount of killing leading up to it, 1 on 1 duel to end it. You don't win the throne for Alistair/Anora because you're persuasive, you do it because you can beat an old man into the ground. 

Anvil of the Void? It's murder all the way! If you're with Harrowmont you basically crush skulls in the proving. If you're with Bhelen you murder your way through the deep roads. Then you murder your way through the Carta, and once you're done with that, you super murder your way through every living (and quasi-living, given the darkspawn) thing all the way to the Anvil itself. 

Modifié par In Exile, 16 décembre 2013 - 04:16 .