14 réponses à ce sujet

[Pen-N-Paper]

One of the things I enjoyed while playing Dragon Age was the discovery of the world - especially when that knowledge had an impact on my informed decisions as a player. I would actively look for books and notes where I went (not just in the Mage's Tower). It had replay value as I found the harder to find bits of info only after a few play throughs. 

 

I kept track of it all in the codex. This immersed me into the world using the same techniques of listening and reading I employ in real life.

 

It would be interesting if what I undercover from such investigations had an impact on my dialogue choices with friends and enemies..... knowledge is power, right? Not just the weapons.

[In Exile]

This was something Alpha Protocol did beautifully but sadly no RPG followed up with it.

[Pen-N-Paper]

I will have to check out that game, thanks for mentioning it.

 

I have to say that when an NPC seems to have a life that intersects with something the game (in another area of the game play) has indirectly informed me about, I feel immersed in the world. It's a great pay off and one that keeps me playing a computer RPG and holds great replay value. I mean killing things gets old. Watching cut scenes, even highly sexual ones, gets old. But feeling like I am part of the game's world really never gets old for me. It's my place to enter as an escape rather than hollow out my mind.

 

Yet, I have heard nothing about this part of the game in Inquisition's marketing. It was so well done in Origins. Horribly and repetitively eradicated in TGTSNBM (the game that shall not be mentioned). And now, in the third offering of the franchise, there is more talk about graphics and killing but nothing about a world I can escape into (like I can with Origins).

 

Probably only a handful of us bought the game.....

 

Thanks again for referencing Alpha Protocol.

[Borosini]

I too enjoy the tidbits (small or not) that you can uncover and which get logged in the codex. I will say though, and I'm sure that there are many others like me, that I miss a lot of it because I'm usually too busy questing to check in on the codex frequently—and when I do, I'm too overwhelmed by the volume of things I've missed to go through and read it all. I've also often lost track of what I picked up where, and without the immediate context, codex entries become less meaningful.

 

I almost wish that codex entries would open automatically when you find them. After all, in real life I would never file something away without reading it first to determine if I needed to keep it. But I can see how that kind of gameplay could be considered annoying.

[Jayce]

This was something Alpha Protocol did beautifully but sadly no RPG followed up with it.

 

Only other game I can recall where the codex and what info you picked up on mission was fully integrated into the plot was the original Deus Ex. In fact it could radically alter the plot and give you different options if you'd dug up key pieces of information.

[Pen-N-Paper]

Only other game I can recall where the codex and what info you picked up on mission was fully integrated into the plot was the original Deus Ex. In fact it could radically alter the plot and give you different options if you'd dug up key pieces of information.

I recall something similar in Spycraft The Great Game - the game that employed the two former heads of the CIA and KGB. Playing case officer Thorn was an immersive experience I still recall. https://www.youtube....h?v=mkc4f2hvr6c

 

Lewis Pulsipher's blog on Gamasutra http://gamasutra.com...ns__Dragons.php All I needed to know (about games and game design) I learned from Dungeons & Dragons makes a good point about immersion when Mr. Pulsipher comments on the importance computer role-playing games give to programmers versus the elements of story within the game (over system/technology design) in tabletop RPGs. I cannot recall the statement exactly, made in the first 8-minute video, but I immediately thought of Dragon Age. And I immediately understood it given my background in pen and paper RPGs.

 

Anyways, your mileage may vary as we say..

[Jimbo_Gee79]

The codex pages were sometimes a bit too short for me. From watching some let's players on Youtube I discovered the joy of reading the books from Skyrim.  I found some very good writing. Funny, scary, informative.

 

The thing that's always puzzled me about Bioware is if they don't have the time or manpower to do this kind of thing, why not get the players out there to write it for you? Surely there are a great deal of players who know a decent amount of lore to write a few books and then all they have to do is copy and paste.

[Pen-N-Paper]

if they don't have the time or manpower to do this kind of thing, why not get the players out there to write it for you?

That is a very good point.

Inquisition has a story (so I have heard) that involves Morrigan and an Old God. There seems to be a ready codex entry in some books intimating the history between the Warden and the Witch of the Wilds. It only has to intimate it - it does not have to confirm it. This entry does not need to be confirmed by integrating Origins game play into DA3. It does not have to be over-engineered in thinking. Maybe the Old God is Morrigan's love child? Or maybe the Old God is a dragon without the Darkspawn? Will Morrigan's love child be an ally or a foe, or nothing at all but a rumour within DA3? Whatever, it would be interesting to read the codex entry written by ..... the sensitive Leliana? the righteous Brother Genitivi? The knowledgeable First Enchanter?

 

I am starting to see several codex entries with different bias, amalgamating into a truth somewhere. This sort of thing might not only present interesting dialogue choices but also impact the player as bias based upon the codex read. 

 

Player feeling = character decision = immersion, in my honest opinion.

This equation is not "button masher" territory, though much button mashing can be had as well.

[Jimbo_Gee79]

Thats what I liked about Skyrim and Baldurs Gate books. They weren't 160 page novels but the three or four pages you got were well written. Its also optional so your not forced to read anything you dont want to.

 

The single codex pages never quite seem enough for me at times.

[Pen-N-Paper]

I was satisfied with the length of the "books." I was interested in the lore of magic, for example, and the veil. The history of Thedas was also interesting – and I would expect a different perspective on that history in writings within Orlais. If the events of DA3 are 16 – 25 years after DA1, there might be some lore about King Cailin The Young. It would be interesting to look back on DA: Origins through the eyes of historical documents in Orlais.  This is the sort of immersive stuff that is lacking.

 

Although there does seem to be enough interest to publish a book about it.

 

Handling the fantasy novels like canon does not create immersion within the game play; it creates individual external expectations brought into the game play. One just has to look at D&D over the last 25 – 30 years to see how settings did just the opposite in pen and paper – it also fragmented the property as a whole. The fantasy novels became bigger sellers than the game in the late 80s, as we now know.

 

Everyone talks about the programming graphics as immersive but, for me at least, the graphics are not the main thing. It wasn’t the real video footage used in Spycraft The Great Game that was immersive; it was my being able to use my player knowledge derived from my play within the game. That was cool. That is how I became the main character.  That made it memorable.

 

In the same way Sten was interesting as an NPC in Origins, my playing a Qunari in DA3 will be uninteresting.

[Magdalena11]

I've been having a lot of fun picking up codex entries and reading them, but I'm glad they're usually optional, since there are times when I just want to get past an area.  They've been pretty funny sometimes and I hope the trend continues.  I do think I read that players will be able to immerse themselves in the world to a largely varying degree and that's pretty cool.  I'm also pretty sure that even if a few xp are lost from not picking them up, there will be plenty of opportunities to make it up later.  Sounds good.

[Eveangaline]

Haven't some of the skyhold power things you can pick be stuff like "improved lore knowledge about such and such" that can change later dialogue options?

[Pen-N-Paper]

Haven't some of the skyhold power things you can pick be stuff like "improved lore knowledge about such and such" that can change later dialogue options?

Not sure I understand you. Would you care to clarify for me, please?

 

Are you describing a separate mechanical issue where player knowledge and character knowledge are not the same immersion? Are you describing a mechanic that by-passes codex entries for the players; making the character more knowledgeable than the player?

 

If the player did not know the information that gets automatically transferred to the character (i.e. in an improved lore knowledge skill mechanic) how will the player appreciate the motivation for later dialogue options? How would it inform player skill? I understand this mechanic to actually take players out from immersion - another form of button mashing. 

[Pen-N-Paper]

This is the horse I rode in on so it makes sense to me to be the horse I ride out on - if you follow my analogy.

 

 

 

I just watched the latest (last?) trailer for DA3.

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=_0CPRM7vT1A

 

 

 

It addresses my particular concerns vis-à-vis this game being a role-playing game. I am still of the opinion talk is cheap and "PR" is easily bought cheaply. Bottom line is everything is hearsay until it is evidenced. A cut scene showing Varic turning away and walking while a narrator says your choices can make party members leave does not have the same impact on me as watching the scene play out frankly. And that is the demonstration I would like to watch, and will watch for on Toegoff's Youtube Let's Play.

 

 

 

The topic of this thread is about world building codices generated from discoveries from reading notes, scrolls, books, and the interaction of listening to NPCs  and such; and about how it impacts on the game role-play aspects. My toon could get a bonus in Intelligence for example or (better still) I can be affected as a player making choices of player agency if I, the player, piece together the "riddle" from what I am taking the time to read on screen "in-game."   

 

 

 

What I have seen are essentially Call Outs during battle giving me detailed information to defeat an opponent - what a codex entry would do in DA:O. Well, ....   On the positive, it works great for surface-level play where killing things and watching cut scenes are the pleasure.  It does not do so much for folks like me who want our in-game involvement to be engrossing. But there it is. Whether this indicates something about the direction the programmers are steering player interaction with world knowledge I cannot but only guess.

 

 

 

The walking style I have watched of the female characters is a social turn off as much as it is an erotic turn on. To my mind, as a child of the 1970s, it is regressive and sexist. It is a choice the game has made through its programming - not because of realism, which is a cop out response. Because I am a man, viewing this bit of cheesecake won't have the same impact upon me as if I were a woman. (Still, there is that well-published underlying industry masculinity that some gamers are not gamer enough *cough*women*cough*). I am probably categorized as being in that out group. Will it impact the story as it unfolds? Yes, as certainly as the story was also programmed by the same men. Someone posted a very astute comment that applies here:

 

 

http://forum.bioware...ons/?p=17666992

 

 

I don't know why bioware does this. It seems that for every stereotype that they brake they impose another. 

 

 

 

And speaking of realism, I hope that sex scenes (if the decision was taken to depict sex scenes) are handled without Speedos for the same reason I hope that when an opponent is killed it does not explode like a suicide bomber.

 

 

 

These sentiments return me to the realism (and role-playing) of learning about the fictional world and its fictional denizens and how that realistically works through game play: finding and reading codices, interacting with opponents to find weaknesses, having a relationship with NPCs by listening to them, etc.  And how mechanics like Call Outs, "underwear", exploding opponents, hooker struts, etc., break all that.  

 

[Pen-N-Paper]

So I have been watching Kevin's Let's Play http://www.youtube.c...9JkNXHB&index=1

 

His is the video that sold me on Dragon Age Origins.  And, from that, to purchase DA2.  Then it was upto Bioware and where I am today: never going to pre-order again. So I was looking forward to seein ghis Let's Play. He is also a pen and paper role-player so we share a familarity with RPGs from the tabletop. I trust his opinion.

 

And his first impresison  verdict is here:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=inl5au9tZUI

 

He has not shown much of the DA3 problems being widely reported around the Internets. His machine is top of the line I understand as he works in the IT industry. It will be a better machine than many here own.

 

Now, if you know pen and paper RPGs, you will notice some of the cardinal rules about GMPCs are broken immediately. The Inquisitor is as dull and detached from the player as possible. From the Let's Play I can see there is no interaction with the player character's back story.

You are ....

is not player interaction with backstory. In Kevin's game, his elf is a spy. For whom? What for? Why did the player character choose to become a spy? All of this was covered in Origins' opening play. It would have been nice to play the moments before the rift opened with this character and know something of the character. Since every character begins with a virtual memory wipe and in an interrogation scene with Cassandra who is zealously against and then willingly submits to the player's leadership (serious schizophrenia), I do not see this lack of engagement as being "the elf" problem.  

 

As Kevin says, after 2 hours of play, he really does not 1) care about the character; and 2) is not engaged with the story. That is a fail.

 

I have watched 12 episodes and I concur. As a spectator I am not commenting on the PC game controls (or lack thereof). I am just focussed on what RPG activity exists within the game. What does exist is the player interacting with the GM's PC. Like I said, if you know tabletop RPGs, you know this is the definition of boredom. And bored I am.

 

If you watch an MMO, it will be the same as watching this button mashing game. It will not be the same experience watching DA:Origins.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=NZ9bv4uJG04   Frankly, seeing these browser-based free to play online MMORPGs being advertised makes me less impressed with the graphics of DA3. They are all great graphics. And so what. If I want to play an MMO, I would not be interested in a game like DA:Origins. And, therefore, I would not be on this forum.

 

What I have seen of the controls has been scary: needing to run after opponents while in melee; and the tactical camera. I would say the absense of the tactical camera. Yes, I am trusting that Kevin knows what he is doing operating the tactical camera. But, in all honesty, there are comments all over the Internet verbally describing the mess I have seen with these two controls. Or, as is written on the Internet, lack thereof.

 

Where is the story? The whole of it seems to be: a player has to redeem himself by becoming a hero. If you are into Spaghetti Westerns, the lack of characterization won't bother you as much as it bothers me.  Banter from a Tyrion Lannister type party member won't save this game for me.

 

The Bioware of storytelling is dead. Put it onto a longship, set it aflame and give it the Viking burial it deserves. The MMO Bioware has arrived.