No it isn't weird. I love the TES series and I love the DA series. I like medieval fantasy and both series offer me that but with different styles and philosophies. It is good to have variety.
In fact they complement each other quite well, If I want to get completely immersed and escape to a different place for a week or so, the I'll play TES games for a while. When I get tired of the boring characters and story, I go back to Dragon Age.
In fact they complement each other quite well, If I want to get completely immersed and escape to a different place for a week or so, the I'll play TES games for a while. When I get tired of the boring characters and story, I go back to Dragon Age.
People are forgetting the Mount and Blade series, took me ages to realise they had 'main storylines' and I have never even bothered with them in my 'I will unite this world in my name' style of play.
It is possible to give players freedom while also delivering a great story, just look at Fallout New Vegas. However most open world games fail horribly at this; most of the sidequests in, for example, Watch Dogs or GTA5 are just not that interesting from a story perspective. If a game is going to prioritise one over the other, I prefer they favour story.
That said, story focused games need to be very careful in how they handle antagonist interactions with the PC. In DA2, it infuriated me that we couldn't take out Petrice in Act 1; she sets you up to be killed, you can even threaten to kill her, and then...the game forces you to let her go. Wth? If you want to preserve a character for a future plot point, don't have them interact directly with the PC until that future point. The Petrice thing could easily be solved just by having Petrice not be there when you went back to end the quest; just have a generic templar you can eliminate or let go instead.
If you want to preserve a character for a future plot point, don't have them interact directly with the PC until that future point.
Well, I disagree with that, its hard to build up a character when you can't let them interact with the PC. The best antagonists interact directly with the PC over the course of the story, build up that relationship. They just need to provide compelling reason for being unable to kill them at that point, which they failed to do with Petrice.
That's true of all roleplaying games.The thing with open world sandbox games is there isn't necessarily any reason to complete them.
I don't like this reliance on antagonists as a design requirement. Did Ultima IV teach us nothing?Well, I disagree with that, its hard to build up a character when you can't let them interact with the PC. The best antagonists interact directly with the PC over the course of the story, build up that relationship. They just need to provide compelling reason for being unable to kill them at that point, which they failed to do with Petrice.
I don't like this reliance on antagonists as a design requirement. Did Ultima IV teach us nothing?
The game doesn't need a singular antagonist. There might be several potential antagonists, and which one is seen by the PC to be his main adversary might differ from playthrough to playthrough. Or there could be no big bad at all. Or the big bad could be an idea rather than an entity (like with U4).
There are.many design options available beyond having a single bad guy who is known to the player for most of the game.
Sure, there are other design options available, but that doesn't mean all are equally enjoyable for every player.
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