544 réponses à ce sujet

[CybAnt1]

Not saying anybody has to lose, don't view this as a win/lose situation.

However, I was wondering if Bioware was listening to "actual criticism" and my happy dance is because it appears they are. Companions we can talk to almost anywhere, dialogue where we know a rough idea of what we're about to say.

Progress, my good Kaiser, progress. It is good. That is all.

P.S. I consider my way of playing "superior" to no one else's; I just want to have the chance to do it. 

Modifié par CybAnt1, 31 janvier 2014 - 05:18 .

[KaiserShep]

I think they listen more than people give them credit for, though sometimes it may serve to a game's detriment.

[Realmzmaster]

There is no problem in listening to the fan base. The problem comes when you let the fan base dictate development, since the entire fan base will never agree on exactly the same points. Bioware best bet is to make the game Bioware wishes to make taking the fan base into consideration, but at the end of the day Bioware has to make the final decisions and then live with the accolades or consequences.

[Realmzmaster]

Mr.House wrote...

Dude, Bioware has outright stated DAO sold OVER 5 million copies. FIVE MILLION COPIES. That is more then 3.5 million copies. Also vgchartz is very unreliable, why peopel keep using it when the offical numbers from Bioware where showne is beyond me.

If you could link to a source then people may listen. For example where did Bioware state that DAO sold five million copies? When numbers are given sources for those numbers become necessary. Otherwise people can onlu use the data that they can reference.

[ragtagfleet]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

Dude, Bioware has outright stated DAO sold OVER 5 million copies. FIVE MILLION COPIES. That is more then 3.5 million copies. Also vgchartz is very unreliable, why peopel keep using it when the offical numbers from Bioware where showne is beyond me.

If you could link to a source then people may listen. For example where did Bioware state that DAO sold five million copies? When numbers are given sources for those numbers become necessary. Otherwise people can onlu use the data that they can reference.

Yeah, I have never seen this "outright statement" he's talking about. EA has said that the entire DA franchise has sold 8+ million units lifetime. They didn't give a breakdown of the individual games.

But hey, devil's advocate, let's say he's right. The vgchartz estimate for DA:O is well within the 5 million range, because vgchartz only estimates retail. Add in digital sales and you're around 5 million. If vgchartz can come that close for DA:O, there's no reason they can't do the same for ME3.

[Master Shiori]

KaiserShep wrote...

I feel alone in actually enjoying DA2's story quite a lot, despite its lack of narrative focus. The reused cellar and cave thing was pretty annoying though. I was glad to see a return of unique subterranean environments and forests in Mark of the Assassin, but I suppose I can't count a DLC.

You're not alone. 

I also enjoyed DA2's story. The thing  is that people who DID enjoy the game got shouted off the forums by the angry mob that took over in the months following the release of DA2, so any positive discussion about the game got confined to groups and character fan topics. 

[KaiserShep]

I wish I was here for all that. I love a good angry e-mob to contend with.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 31 janvier 2014 - 08:05 .

[Allan Schumacher]

KiwiQuiche wrote...

They could do it like Deus Ex, where if you lingered over a paraphrase long enough it would show up with the full dialogue so you knew what Jensen was gonna say if you use that line. That way you can have a paraphrase without having the full dialogue clogging the screen if you didn't want to.

Just as a note, as I recently was playing this (and still need to finish it >.>), but DXHR doesn't show the full spoken line for longer responses either.

I imagine on some level it just becomes a space thing, because Jensen's response is particularly lengthy.

That said, it definitely says a lot more than ours do (and the words shown are the words spoken, even if they aren't all there).

I feel alone in actually enjoying DA2's story quite a lot, despite its
lack of narrative focus. The reused cellar and cave thing was pretty
annoying though. I was glad to see a return of unique subterranean
environments and forests in Mark of the Assassin, but I suppose I can't
count a DLC.

Well, fan response effectively mandated that it was clear we couldn't do that again.  Mark of the Assassin's (and the other DLC) lack of level reuse is a response to the feedback.



EDIT: Old thread is apparently old

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 31 janvier 2014 - 08:11 .

[Ieldra]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

KiwiQuiche wrote...

They could do it like Deus Ex, where if you lingered over a paraphrase long enough it would show up with the full dialogue so you knew what Jensen was gonna say if you use that line. That way you can have a paraphrase without having the full dialogue clogging the screen if you didn't want to.

Just as a note, as I recently was playing this (and still need to finish it >.>), but DXHR doesn't show the full spoken line for longer responses either.

I imagine on some level it just becomes a space thing, because Jensen's response is particularly lengthy.

That said, it definitely says a lot more than ours do (and the words shown are the words spoken, even if they aren't all there).

This was brought up abovethread. DXHR didn't show the complete response if it was especially lengthy or made of several segments, but it nonetheless worked well for me since it showed the full first part of the response, which often enough was the whole, and by showing it word-for-word it was much clearer than DA2. It also didn't make me feel as if I wasn't allowed to know my character's mind.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 31 janvier 2014 - 10:14 .

[Fast Jimmy]

addiction21 wrote...

wolfhowwl wrote...

VGChartz shows zero PC sales in North America and also doesn't seem to be counting Ultimate Edition sales for the consoles either.

Something is off here, if anything DA:O sales would be higher than what is reported on that site.

You know what I am waiting for. That X game that sold so much more then Y game did so because of this one aspect so many try to claim it did.

Sorry its not that simple.

No one was saying "Skyrim sold 10 million copies because of a non-voiced, dialogue list" system. Everyone was responding to "games with voiced protagonists sell more than silent ones, therefore voiced protagonists are better." That logic is wrong, just like the logic of saying Skyrim proves a silent PC is better. 

You are heckling people about using sales to justify features, but the people you are heckling were ALREADY heckling a person who was using sales to justify features. 

[Ieldra]

I would like to clear up some of the confusion about the term "roleplaying."

No, I won't attempt a defintion of rpg because that's fluid and a matter of perception. The reason why people get confused so often is that roleplaying implies that you can take ownership of a character to some degree, and you can effectively do that in every game with a defined player avatar, even if it means nothing more than having your avatar move around and attack things. 

The question is then: to which extent can you make the character yours? Ironically, the more story-driven a game is, the less ownership it allows. Skyrim proves that there is a large market for more purist approaches to roleplaying, where you can not only create your character but also your stories by doing things in sequence, talking with NPCs, driven by something that's only meaningful to you and the motivation you put into your character. This is the equivalent of a tabletop rpg campaign where the GM allows the players to go where they want and has a set of possible story elements to build into whichever location the players choose to visit. If these elements are connected by a bigger plot, that's by chance, and the player can follow the larger plots or not without making the game as such any less meaningful. Following a story is not the point here, living in the secondary world is. 

Bioware's games have never been of that kind. They've always been more story-driven, to the extent that sandbox elements like BG2's chapter 2 appeared somewhat alien to a significant percentage of players. Being more story-driven means that the character must fit the story. Thus, we don't get to imagine our own backstory for the Bhaalspawn, we have a limited selection of backgrounds for Shepard or the Warden. There is also one personality trait present by implication: a motivation to follow the events of the story. That motivation can be fluid, but it must exist or the character isn't plausible. That is as it should be, and I don't have any problem with it. If I had, I'd play more Skyrim and less Dragon Age. I prefer more strongly story-driven games.

Now back to the original topic of this thread: when I'm arguing against paraphrasing, I am arguing from the principle that reducing player ownership of a character should not be done without necessity. If you want to tell a meaningful story, allowing the player less ownership of their character than in games like Skyrim is a necessity. As I do like story-driven games, I do not have any problem with that. The fact that I'm annoyed by the paraphrasing to an extent you'd never guess when you read my posts has two reasons: (1) If you don't let the player know about what their character will say if you choose X, then that means the player is not allowed comprehensive knowledge of the character's mind. Agency over the workings of the character's mind, however, lies at the very heart of roleplaying, and if the game doesn't allow me to project myself into the character and instead forces me to act like a director giving an actor the freedom to say whatever they want as long as it's compatible with the paraphrase, that is to sacrifice a core element of roleplaying  (2) Paraphrasing comes across to me as completely unnecessary. From my point of view, paraphrasing sacrifices a core aspect of roleplaying for absolutely no gain at all.

So, yes, paraphrasing is bad. I want it to be gone, badly. Since that won't happen, I will - as a second best solution - try to preserve the core aspect of roleplaying which is destroyed by the paraphrasing at least to some extent. Thus, I'm arguing for something like DXHR did, showing the first line of the exchange following the selection of a paraphrase in its entirety. From my POV, that is the least they can do, having forced this....abomination.... on us.

Edit:
Obviously, it's not bad enough to prevent me from playing the games, but it is enough to consider the possibility that a crowd-funded game with a budget 1/10 of DAI's, if that, might end up the better game in a direct contest.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 31 janvier 2014 - 11:17 .

[Ieldra]

I contest that it is not possible to take ownership of a voiced character in the same way I would do for a non-voiced. Bioware explicitly supports this with many other aspects of their games. You can't but notice it even in DA2 if you're aware of the places where it would be so easy to go wrong and it doesn't. 

Modifié par Ieldra2, 31 janvier 2014 - 11:20 .

[Ieldra]

You misunderstand role-playing. Roleplaying does not mean that the character is me and I will act as I would do were I in their place. Roleplaying means that you *do* play someone who is NOT you, but you can decide who and what your character is.If you can decide between different spoken lines, you can decide which one is more appropriate for your character, and thus make a decision about who and what they are. If you can only select a paraphrase, you can tell the game a vague wish and the game decides who and what your character is. This is not in any way necessary for a voiced protagonist.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 31 janvier 2014 - 11:26 .

[Lord Watson]

I argue that whether voiced or not doesn't matter. It's not like you get more choices for dialogue in most cases with a silent PC. You may choose one of 3-4 many dialogue choices-whether they are voiced or not matters little beyond the voice itself and the delivery.

TES is actually less of a purist RPG experience, IMO. Character interaction is number 1 on my list to what constitutes an rpg. Character interaction in TES is rather...meh at best. Not because the dialogue isn't voiced, btw. I didn't mind silent in DA:O. The game just isn't about that. It's about going out, exploring, and performing great deeds. Much like in a classic action/adventure game. Flings in DA or ME have more value than marriage in Skyrim. Besides them blocking doorways in your house they may as well not be there.

[Fast Jimmy]

Lord Watson wrote...

I argue that whether voiced or not doesn't matter. It's not like you get more choices for dialogue in most cases with a silent PC. You may choose one of 3-4 many dialogue choices-whether they are voiced or not matters little beyond the voice itself and the delivery.

TES is actually less of a purist RPG experience, IMO. Character interaction is number 1 on my list to what constitutes an rpg. Character interaction in TES is rather...meh at best. Not because the dialogue isn't voiced, btw. I didn't mind silent in DA:O. The game just isn't about that. It's about going out, exploring, and performing great deeds. Much like in a classic action/adventure game. Flings in DA or ME have more value than marriage in Skyrim. Besides them blocking doorways in your house they may as well not be there.

All of this is ancillary to the main conversation - the reason why the silent PC is being advocated is because you always knew what your character was going to say before they said it. With paraphrases, that is no longer the case. 

I think Skyrim, with its limited dialogue options, still let me roleplay better than DA2 did, due to the fact that my own character never had the opportunity to counter-act my control of them. As someone said earlier, it makes the player more passive, as if we are merely a director guiding the actor that we don't control. 

[CybAnt1]

EDIT: Old thread is apparently old

Hello Mr. Schumacher. Thanks for dropping by. I just want to let you know I am not part of any "toxic fanbase". 

I am not the least bit poisonous. OK, maybe slightly more acidic than alkaline. But I don't bite. 

I guess I am saying that while I know devs are sometimes afraid to tread in these waters, some of us don't mind hearing from you. We may have constructive criticism, but have no torches and pitchforks. 

Who knows, if you piped in earlier, I might not have had to do some google fu to know what you were already doing. 

But again, thanks anyway. For two reasons. 

[CybAnt1]

Ieldra2 wrote...
You misunderstand role-playing. Roleplaying does not mean that the character is me and I will act as I would do were I in their place. 

At the end of the day, while the devs are writing a different world, and the players are experiencing it, 'metagame' things are constantly happening. 

I chuckled aloud when Isabela says "I like big boats and I cannot lie". That line was funny not for my character who I doubt knew the reference in it, but for me, the player, who knows who Sir Mix-A-Lot is. 

There's constant reference in the DA games to other games and pop culture. Those are not there for the characters, they are there for the players. 

Immersion always varies. At the end of the day, I can't think like a futuristic space commando, or someone living in a fantasy quasi-medieval world. I don't have a spaceship, and they don't have any microwaves. I can only try, but the game has to let me. I also admit I think I am always a bit more "good" than my characters are, like even when I select to play a mostly amoral, personal-code rogue. 

I'm not a total purist in anything, even here. BTW, as I've noted somewhere else, my preference for things in a very good game, doesn't mean I won't play games without them, as diversions. I play dungeon crawlers, which really, going back to a pre-Fallout heritage, pretty much have little to no "RP" at all. I suppose though, from developers who make good games with good features, I like to keep them.

Modifié par CybAnt1, 31 janvier 2014 - 01:10 .

[Noctis Augustus]

Ieldra2 wrote...

You misunderstand role-playing. Roleplaying does not mean that the character is me and I will act as I would do were I in their place. Roleplaying means that you *do* play someone who is NOT you, but you can decide who and what your character is.If you can decide between different spoken lines, you can decide which one is more appropriate for your character, and thus make a decision about who and what they are. If you can only select a paraphrase, you can tell the game a vague wish and the game decides who and what your character is. This is not in any way necessary for a voiced protagonist.

Actually it goes both ways. You're free to play as if your character is your avatar or not. Role-playing is the playing of a role, how you do it is up to you. So don't claim otherwise.

[Ieldra]

Noctis Augustus wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
You misunderstand role-playing. Roleplaying does not mean that the character is me and I will act as I would do were I in their place. Roleplaying means that you *do* play someone who is NOT you, but you can decide who and what your character is.If you can decide between different spoken lines, you can decide which one is more appropriate for your character, and thus make a decision about who and what they are. If you can only select a paraphrase, you can tell the game a vague wish and the game decides who and what your character is. This is not in any way necessary for a voiced protagonist.

Actually it goes both ways. You're free to play as if your character is your avatar or not. Role-playing is the playing of a role, how you do it is up to you. So don't claim otherwise.

Not the point. You *can* play as yourself and many do, but I was refuting the claim that roleplaying *means* you're playing yourself within a secondary world.

All of this is irrelevant to the topic though. Where I was going with my argument is that the voiced protagonist does not in any way restrict how you can relate to the character you're playing. Bioware chose to distance the player from the protagonist by using paraphrasing, and possibly the voiced protagonist was a contributing factor to that decision, but they don't necessarily go together.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 31 janvier 2014 - 01:53 .

[Noctis Augustus]

Lord Watson wrote...

I argue that whether voiced or not doesn't matter. It's not like you get more choices for dialogue in most cases with a silent PC. You may choose one of 3-4 many dialogue choices-whether they are voiced or not matters little beyond the voice itself and the delivery.

TES is actually less of a purist RPG experience, IMO. Character interaction is number 1 on my list to what constitutes an rpg. Character interaction in TES is rather...meh at best. Not because the dialogue isn't voiced, btw. I didn't mind silent in DA:O. The game just isn't about that. It's about going out, exploring, and performing great deeds. Much like in a classic action/adventure game. Flings in DA or ME have more value than marriage in Skyrim. Besides them blocking doorways in your house they may as well not be there.

You could get more choices, voiced protagonists take much more resources than silent ones. That means that said resources could be allocated somewhere else.

The definition of a RPG is like a religion, it seems. Opinion and disregard for the facts are so frequent.

"The game just isn't about that. It's about going out, exploring, and performing great deeds. Much like in a classic action/adventure game. Flings in DA or ME have more value than marriage in Skyrim. Besides them blocking doorways in your house they may as well not be there."

Except unlike an action-adventure game you can actually role-play, something I've been struggling to do in Bioware's post-DAO games. Skyrim is an action-RPG but it has adventure elements as well, in fact Morrowind was an adventure-RPG because it had much less focus on action and more on adventure. DA and ME are not pure RPGs either, they're action-RPGs... In fact I consider ME3 an action game, I fail to see where the RPG elements are.
Maybe because we don't care to play dating simulators?

Ieldra2 wrote...

Noctis Augustus wrote...

Actually it goes both ways. You're free to play as if your character is your avatar or not. Role-playing is the playing of a role, how you do it is up to you. So don't claim otherwise.

Not the point. You *can* play as yourself and many do, but I was refuting the claim that roleplaying *means* you're playing yourself within a secondary world.

Apologies then.

Modifié par Noctis Augustus, 31 janvier 2014 - 02:11 .

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

All of this is ancillary to the main conversation - the reason why the silent PC is being advocated is because you always knew what your character was going to say before they said it. With paraphrases, that is no longer the case.  

But that's just plain false. You're missing intent and pragmatics - and with that it's very difficult to know how the dialogue will actually be interpreted. So you don't know what you're saying. What you know is the literal content of what you're saying. It's one thing to say that people thing the literal content of a sentence is important to their way of RPing - that's certainly a thing you see in silent PC games. But it's not knowing what your character will say.

I think Skyrim, with its limited dialogue options, still let me roleplay better than DA2 did, due to the fact that my own character never had the opportunity to counter-act my control of them. As someone said earlier, it makes the player more passive, as if we are merely a director guiding the actor that we don't control.  

Skyrim had very, very many opportunities that forced my character to act contrary to my control, by making choices impossible and by denying me choices that would be in character. So once again, this can only be true if "never" counter-acting control means very narrowly not having the literal content of a line be different. 

Skyrim, for example, makes it (basically) impossible for you to be saracastic. 

[Noctis Augustus]

In Exile wrote...

I think Skyrim, with its limited dialogue options, still let me roleplay better than DA2 did, due to the fact that my own character never had the opportunity to counter-act my control of them. As someone said earlier, it makes the player more passive, as if we are merely a director guiding the actor that we don't control.  

Skyrim had very, very many opportunities that forced my character to act contrary to my control, by making choices impossible and by denying me choices that would be in character. So once again, this can only be true if "never" counter-acting control means very narrowly not having the literal content of a line be different. 

Skyrim, for example, makes it (basically) impossible for you to be saracastic. 

That's not the point. Games have limits, Jimmy's point is how you don't lose control within those limits.

[In Exile]

Ieldra2 wrote...
The question is then: to which extent can you make the character yours? Ironically, the more story-driven a game is, the less ownership it allows.

That's completely false. The more open-world the game is, the less it's possible to have "ownership" over your character unless ownership means "complete fantasy that is impossible to display or express in game and that the game will never under any circumstances react to in any way". 

Skyrim proves that there is a large market for more purist approaches to roleplaying, where you can not only create your character but also your stories by doing things in sequence, talking with NPCs, driven by something that's only meaningful to you and the motivation you put into your character.

Unless. for example, your motivation is to start a third rebellion that's not let by Ulfric. Or if you want to take over a city and annex it from Skyrim as a personal fiefdom. Or if your motivation is to just plain be funny. 

Thus, we don't get to imagine our own backstory for the Bhaalspawn, we have a limited selection of backgrounds for Shepard or the Warden.

You don't get to have your own backstory for Skyrim either. You get to have a fantasy competely divorced from the reality of the game if you happen to make it it fit with "being arrested by the Imperials", but they're your railroaded into being a murdering, mercenary nomad. 

If you want to tell a meaningful story, allowing the player less ownership of their character than in games like Skyrim is a necessity.

Again, I disagree. Head cannon is not ownership. People don't have "more ownership" over Shepard if they spend a lot of time basically creating scenes themselves like that happy-ending ME fan mod. That's what "ownership" is in the context of something like Skyrim, minus the months of work it takes to actually create game content. 

If you don't let the player know about what their character will say if you choose X, then that means the player is not allowed comprehensive knowledge of the character's mind.

That logic is broken. It's broken because the game never shows you in advance what your next option is going to me. Let's take DA:O as an example. Suppose my Cousland is ambitious - she wants to be Queen of Ferelden in her own right. She's (a) found the literal remains of the Jesus-equivalent of her religion, i.e., the Thedas Holy Grail; ( she's an eloquent speaker who could sway an entire room full of nobels; © she's manipulated Alistair (Theiren) into think she loves him, a man who doesn't want to be King at all; and (d) she's saved multiple parts of Ferelden as a heroic GW. With all of that she has quite a legitimate claim to Crowning herself Queen at the Landsmeet. 

Maybe this plan works or it doesn't - but it DA:O it can't work without you basically letting Alistair penetrate you. How is that not breaking my character by taking away options from me?

How is it - when Wynne asks you what it means to you to be a GW - that you can't say "It means I was kindapped and forced to leave my parents to die by a sadistic old creep that forced me to drink darkspawn blood, and I'll burn this order to the ground once I save Ferelden?" 

Why can't my dwarf commnoner just say Branka crowned him King of Orzammar? Who's stopping him? 

Agency over the workings of the character's mind, however, lies at the very heart of roleplaying, and if the game doesn't allow me to project myself into the character

DA:O didn't allow me to project myself into the character by keeping options away from me without even telling me in advance they exist. That's the same thing. 

[In Exile]

Noctis Augustus wrote...
That's not the point. Games have limits, Jimmy's point is how you don't lose control within those limits.

Except I do. I create an ambituous character who wants to be the New God King of Skyrim. Well, I can go suck a fat one because that's not an option in-game and I won't know that until I finish the game and see that it isn't an option. 

Or, like I said, I can create a character who happens to hate the GWs. Well,  I can go suck a fat one beacuse DA:O has no options that allow to to say that you're anything other than a GW post-Ostagar or to justify your saving Ferelden for any other reason that "I'm a Grey Warden". 

The limits are broad and unknowable and you have absolutely no access to them, and you never know if the next arbitrary 3 lines the game gives you will be even remotely close to an "in-character" choice for your character, or an "in-character" way of expressing yourself. 

Modifié par In Exile, 31 janvier 2014 - 03:07 .

[Pressedcat]

I agree with Ieldra on this point (or at least think I do since I haven't read all 21 pages). I think the problem with paraphrasing stems from the dissonance that can arise between the response you thought you were giving and the response actually voiced.

When role playing a conversation, I will first consider how my character would likely respond. In pnp role play, this is as far as one needs to go, and all would be good. However, playing a crpg I then have to read through the available responses and decide which most closely mirrors my desired reply. If the protagonist is unvoiced, the conversation moves on with only a small compromise made in the overall character concept (unless the chosen dialogue illicits a response at odds with the way the chosen dialogue was intended). More problems can arise if the protagonist is voiced, however, particularly when the dialogue options were paraphrased; if the dialogue option is voiced, the response is repeated audibly, and any differences between the 'ideal' reply and the selected one are reinforced, along with any differences between how I would deliver the line and how the voice actor chooses to do so - possibly changing the tone of the whole response. If the responses are also paraphrased, occasionally the spoken response can be entirely different from what is expected, resulting in me feeling quite divorced from my character and the words they are speaking. Too much of this and I can end up feeling I have lost agency in my character. This happened a few times in Mass Effect, and the only way around the problem I found was to run through several responses until I was able to find a dialogue path I was happy with. The removal of paraphrasing, or else the ability to view at least the first few lines of the response script, would help me play more closely in sync with my character concept without having to repeatedly reload conversations.

This is not to say that I also prefer unvoiced protagonists over voiced ones, since voicing a character can bring its own advantages; amongst them the fact that the protagonist feels less passive in conversations and can sometimes even promote the growth of a more fully fleshed out personality concept.