171 réponses à ce sujet

[Nefla]

I don't know about that...
 
I liked the quieter story in Dragon Age II, less about saving the world, more about personal struggle, friendship, and the like. That always appeals to me more. And honestly, I would argue that the characterization and overall plot of Dragon Age II is superior to Inquisition.

Lol the plot that consists of doing chores to earn enough money for the expedition, then doing chores for the viscount and the Qunari, then doing chores for the mages and Templars? All of the aforementioned excitement and intrigue stuffed into one tiny city with endlessly recycled tiny and undetailed maps, with nothing to show the passage of time, truly a story for the ages that one.

The only great thing about DA2 was the characters (and some of the music) but you had less interaction with them in DA2 than you do in origins or inquisition.

[Slayer of cupcakes]

Bioware didn't make Kotor 2.

 

He said that.

[LinksOcarina]

Lol the plot that consists of doing chores to earn enough money for the expedition, then doing chores for the viscount and the Qunari, then doing chores for the mages and Templars? All of the aforementioned excitement and intrigue stuffed into one tiny city with endlessly recycled tiny and undetailed maps, with nothing to show the passage of time, truly a story for the ages that one.

The only great thing about DA2 was the characters (and some of the music) but you had less interaction with them in DA2 than you do in origins or inquisition.

 

Yeah that's subjective, you know.

 

The story of Dragon Age II is not supposed to be about intrigue. If you want intrigue play The Great Game during the masquerade in Inquisition.  

 

What Dragon Age II is about is the struggle. The struggle for acceptance, status, control, peace, and power. Hawke is a hero because he is the everyperson of heroes, the one who acted when he needed to. And the companions became the driving force, the surrogate family as the city of Kirkwall fell apart. The "chores" are pretty much Hawke getting involved and going through the path of a reluctant hero, which as a story arc is fairly appealing because it's something BioWare never does, it's always a "chosen one" hero's journey, that more or less gets stale because you become extraordinary due to happenstance or epic destiny.

 

Give me something simple, something more human any day.

 

and honestly, if you really think the recycled city walls really matter to the story, you are missing the point of the story itself. 

[Heimdall]

Yeah that's subjective, you know.

The story of Dragon Age II is not supposed to be about intrigue. If you want intrigue play The Great Game during the masquerade in Inquisition.

What Dragon Age II is about is the struggle. The struggle for acceptance, status, control, peace, and power. Hawke is a hero because he is the everyperson of heroes, the one who acted when he needed to. And the companions became the driving force, the surrogate family as the city of Kirkwall fell apart. The "chores" are pretty much Hawke getting involved and going through the path of a reluctant hero, which as a story arc is fairly appealing because it's something BioWare never does, it's always a "chosen one" hero's journey, that more or less gets stale because you become extraordinary due to happenstance or epic destiny.

Give me something simple, something more human any day.

and honestly, if you really think the recycled city walls really matter to the story, you are missing the point of the story itself.

Something the Inquisitor can say:

Spoiler

If Hawke dies (I may be Paraphrasing): "Hawke was a hero not because of an oath or because he was marked as special, but because someone had to be."

[LinksOcarina]

Something the Inquisitor can say:

Spoiler

If Hawke dies (I may be Paraphrasing): "Hawke was a hero not because of an oath or because he was marked as special, but because someone had to be."

 

I agree with that, and that honestly is appealing as a character arc. I may be the only one, but again it is subjective. 

[Heimdall]

I agree with that, and that honestly is appealing as a character arc. I may be the only one, but again it is subjective.

Well, I find it appealing too. I just hope DA2's reception doesn't scare Bioware off from trying that kind of story again.

[AceHalberd]

Bioware writes good characters, but often average stories. These stories can have great elements in them (eg. the twists in Kotor and Jade Empire), but are often fairly standard fare otherwise. If you learn not to expect Deus Ex or Metal Gear Solid, you'll find yourself much more satisfied with the experience you do get.

[Slayer of cupcakes]

You bought the game, complained and then got a bunch of people to come out and disagree with you. All you did was advertise for BioWare ever so slightly and gave them money. How is that a failure?

You didn't even read his critique, did you? 

[LinksOcarina]

Bioware writes good characters, but often average stories. These stories can have great elements in them (eg. the twists in Kotor and Jade Empire), but are often fairly standard fare otherwise. If you learn not to expect Deus Ex or Metal Gear Solid, you'll find yourself much more satisfied with the experience you do get.

 

To be fair, Metal Gear Solid has not had a good story in a long time. Most of the time it's muddled cliche espionage fair, mixed with pseudo-intellectual musings on war and destruction.

 

That said, I do agree, the stories overall tend to be average. Even Mass Effect, the weakest element is the overall plotline being very contrived since the first game, the Reapers as a massive, big bad evil is the cliche that painted BioWare into that corner.

 

But it doesn't make the game BAD by all means. There is a reason why such cliches are accepted, because they work better to psychological instances o what we expect from a fantasy-genre game.

 

Let's honestly break it down. For example, would Dragon Age be any different if there were no elves or dwarves in it? Why are they included in the game in the end?

 

The cynic in me is because they had to hit that checklist of fantasy tropes. The question  of "if it didn't exist, would you invent it?" comes to mind. If elves didn't exist, would you invent a race for Dragon Age that would be oppressed or nomadic forest dwellers? 

 

So even the inclusion of elves is a cliche, because it implies less originality, but I always argue how they are used in the worlds they inhabit that makes them another unique take on elves, to differentiate from the standard, tolkien-esque elves that almost all of fantasy bases them on. 

[Nefla]

Yeah that's subjective, you know.

 

The story of Dragon Age II is not supposed to be about intrigue. If you want intrigue play The Great Game during the masquerade in Inquisition.  

 

What Dragon Age II is about is the struggle. The struggle for acceptance, status, control, peace, and power. Hawke is a hero because he is the everyperson of heroes, the one who acted when he needed to. And the companions became the driving force, the surrogate family as the city of Kirkwall fell apart. The "chores" are pretty much Hawke getting involved and going through the path of a reluctant hero, which as a story arc is fairly appealing because it's something BioWare never does, it's always a "chosen one" hero's journey, that more or less gets stale because you become extraordinary due to happenstance or epic destiny.

 

Give me something simple, something more human any day.

 

and honestly, if you really think the recycled city walls really matter to the story, you are missing the point of the story itself. 

DA2 gave me (and a huge number of others based on how it was received) no impression of a struggle or a hero, just an unquestioning errand boy/girl doing short, mostly meaningless tasks because other people told him to. Your actions have no effect on anything most of the time, the passage of time and the events of the story aren't reflected in the city in any way. Everyone still even has the same clothes and hair as they've had for 8 years (even Isabella who's outfit was supposedly the underwear she washed up in). There were no hard decisions and no reason for you to be doing most of the things you were doing. Most of the plot points didn't mesh together or even seem like they should be a forced part of the plot (ex: the game doesn't even try to give you an excuse for forcing you to kill X number of Tal'Vashoth goons for Javaris)The city didn't make you care about it at all. There were no sympathetic NPCs that you wanted to help or that you cared about. The lives of the people were not shown at all, the game did a crap job of trying to force you to care about mages or Templars first by forcing you to have the sibling that is on the opposite side of the magical spectrum as you and then by making a bunch of one dimensional mage and Templar nutjobs doing a bunch of psychotic stuff for no reason. Like it if you want, but it was objectively bad.

 

That doesn't mean a, small personal story can't be awesome, DA2 was just done very poorly. (DA:O was much more of a story of personal growth than DA2) 

[Nessaya]

Kotor II was a bad comparison imo, I absolutely loved the story and characters and thought it was a vast improvement to Kotor I.

BOOM I said it.

[LinksOcarina]

DA2 gave me (and a huge number of others based on how it was received) no impression of a struggle or a hero, just an unquestioning errand boy/girl doing short, mostly meaningless tasks because other people told him to. Your actions have no effect on anything most of the time, the passage of time and the events of the story aren't reflected in the city in any way. Everyone still even has the same clothes and hair as they've had for 8 years (even Isabella who's outfit was supposedly the underwear she washed up in). There were no hard decisions and no reason for you to be doing most of the things you were doing. Most of the plot points didn't mesh together or even seem like they should be a forced part of the plot (ex: the game doesn't even try to give you an excuse for forcing you to kill X number of Tal'Vashoth goons for Javaris)The city didn't make you care about it at all. There were no sympathetic NPCs that you wanted to help or that you cared about. The lives of the people were not shown at all, the game did a crap job of trying to force you to care about mages or Templars first by forcing you to have the sibling that is on the opposite side of the magical spectrum as you and then by making a bunch of one dimensional mage and Templar nutjobs doing a bunch of psychotic stuff for no reason. Like it if you want, but it was objectively bad.

 

That doesn't mean a, small personal story can't be awesome, DA2 was just done very poorly. (DA:O was much more of a story of personal growth than DA2) 

 

No it was not objectively bad, get over that fact already.

 

Everything you said was an opinion, it is a subjective one. If it was an objective opinion, then it would be universally accepted as such. Since stories and the mechanical aspects of the game are always subjective in nature, that is where it lies.

 

I hate people who keep saying something is objectively bad when it's not. Even stuff I hate like The Last of Us or Lord of the Rings is not objectively bad, butt that is what subjective taste is all about, it depends on you as the person, and what you like.

[rashie]

Off topic tangent but Kotor 2 wouldn't have been nearly as bad if Obsidian had been given appropriate development time to sort their **** out.

 

With the restored content mod it flies past Kotor 1 as an rpg in the eyes of many people but what happened before that reached the stage it is currently at? It was rushed due to Lucasarts wanting it out way before it was ready, alongside pretty much not having an ending whatsoever.

[Han Master]

The only failure is when DAI isn't as good as a bestseller as they would have like.

[Todrazok]

They didn't fail at all, in my opinion. The game isn't perfect, but it is very very good. Deffinatly a good step in the right direction.

Sums up my feelings about this game perfectly

[Julia Luna]

 Meanwhile, other people think Da:I and KotorII are the better games. They think they are damn near perfect. 

 

Wow, what a strange concept.  People think differently, people like other things, people are not just apart of a hive mind loving the same type of cliche story structure that has existed for 1000 years. How is that possible!?

 

Could it be that all of these games are generally really good games that some people like more than others and some people don't like more than others. Thus, because some people don't like them that doesn't mean they are complete failures. How bizarre! How can people be so varied in opinion? In thoughts?

 

I haven't finished DA:I yet, I have a love hate relationship with it right now, and at the moment it certainly pales in comparison to KOTORII when it comes to story for me. 

 

Also, the exile didn't have amnesia for the last time! Revan did, yes, but the exile did not. I mean, one of the first things you do as the exile in the game when you fire up the galaxy map the first time, is tell Atton about that time you got exiled from the Jedi order and refused to say that following Revan to fight in the war was bad and that blowing up a planet was bad. How on earth is that amnesia. The exile just didn't know how she lost the force, didn't remember a child from a class she taught nearly 20 years ago, and didn't remember one random engineer amongst many engineers that worked on a planet destroying project over 10 years ago. *rips up a piece of paper and throws the pieces everywhere* RAWR FAN RAGE!

I prefer KOTOR II and Origins. In fact DAI is a LOT more cliché when it comes to story. That's one of the things I hate about DAI, in DAO it was a lot more easy to NOT be a hero than it is in DAI.

 

But I don't even think that it is about it...

[jsachun]

I'm kinda lost in the quests to have even noticed the story line. Done second part of the main and busy exploring fereldan, and side quests.

 

I do kinda agree, in a sense that there is no background intro, and feels like we are kinda thrown straight in to it. There was no gradual build up to the main plot like DA:O. When the intro was done, I was like is that it. Felt more like DA2 than DA:O. It would've been kinda nice to have a little quest before the rip event to get a bit of background lore in to how each of the race are treated and perceived in Orlais, as oppose to Fereldan. 

[AtreiyaN7]

I liked KotOR II, but I don't think all the praise is warranted because it wasn't the masterpiece people like to make it out to be, in my opinion. I certainly didn't love the looping dialogue with Kreia and the handling of dialogue with companions in general, because it sure felt like things were cut/incomplete on the whole (and the devs certainly acknowledged that things were cut like the droid planet that was intended to be in the game). Also, while I was sort of okay with the ending, it ended up being lame as time went on because there was never a direct sequel.

 

Well, at least I got some level of resolution from SW:TOR, even though most people flip out about the Revan thing. As far as the DA games go as a whole, I think there's a long-term plan for where this is all going - it's hardly the same flying off to search for Revan and having to wait a bazillion years for an answer.

 

I think the story is actually going somewhere after DA:I, and I'm certainly invested in seeing what happens next at this point. I mean, I also like that I had some loose threads tied up (to an extent) in DA:I like finding out the the fate of my Hawke and my Warden (and actually chatting with my Hawke).

 

As far as story pacing goes, well, if you got doing a lot of exploring and whatnot, yes, I suppose things might feel off - but personally, I like having a breather and exploring in between. Maybe if you just push straight to the end, it would feel slightly different, but I largely enjoyed DA:I as is. They do need to fix the banter bug - I think it's probably contributing on some level to people thinking there's not as much dialogue with companions.

 

And I certainly would've liked more cutscenes to flesh things out, but goodness, they had a whole lot to deal with and to address.

[Slayer of cupcakes]

No it was not objectively bad, get over that fact already.

 

Everything you said was an opinion, it is a subjective one. If it was an objective opinion, then it would be universally accepted as such. Since stories and the mechanical aspects of the game are always subjective in nature, that is where it lies.

 

I hate people who keep saying something is objectively bad when it's not. Even stuff I hate like The Last of Us or Lord of the Rings is not objectively bad, butt that is what subjective taste is all about, it depends on you as the person, and what you like.

Excuse me, but DA2 IS objectively bad. The art style was grey and bland (this is what happens when you outsource your art department to India), the writing was juvenile (save for the Qunari plot line, which was well written), the NPC's were little more than cardboard cutouts with painfully fabricated personalities (Merrill's silly little girl-esque giggliness, Anders' insufferable whininess, and Fenris's emo broodiness does not constitute a step forward for the series), and the main quest couldn't have been more uninteresting (wow, magic users vs magic regulators. That certainly hasn't been used to death in fantasy games and novels, lol). And let's not forget the forced family that we never once had any reason to care about, and the whole ''i'm a medieval fed ex guy who specializes in bi@!# work'' thing. 

 

But no, DA2 wasn't bad at all. In other news, COD is the second coming of gaming Christ, Gears of war will replace Homers Oddesy as a story for the ages, and Battlefield is an artistic achievement that rivals the mona lisa. ;D

[Alan Rickman]

Excuse me, but DA2 IS objectively bad. The art style was grey and bland (this is what happens when you outsource your art department to India), the writing was juvenile (save for the Qunari plot line, which was well written), the NPC's were little more than cardboard cutouts with painfully fabricated personalities (Merrill's silly little girl-esque giggliness, Anders' insufferable whininess, and Fenris's emo broodiness does not constitute a step forward for the series), and the main quest couldn't have been more uninteresting (wow, magic users vs magic regulators. That certainly hasn't been used to death in fantasy games and novels, lol). And let's not forget the forced family that we never once had any reason to care about, and the whole ''i'm a medieval fed ex guy who specializes in bi@!# work'' thing. 

 

But no, DA2 wasn't bad at all. In other news, COD is the second coming of gaming Christ, Gears of war will replace Homers Oddesy as a story for the ages, and Battlefield is an artistic achievement that rivals the mona lisa. ;D

 

[Laterali]

Excuse me, but DA2 IS objectively bad. The art style was grey and bland (this is what happens when you outsource your art department to India), the writing was juvenile (save for the Qunari plot line, which was well written), the NPC's were little more than cardboard cutouts with painfully fabricated personalities (Merrill's silly little girl-esque giggliness, Anders' insufferable whininess, and Fenris's emo broodiness does not constitute a step forward for the series), and the main quest couldn't have been more uninteresting (wow, magic users vs magic regulators. That certainly hasn't been used to death in fantasy games and novels, lol). And let's not forget the forced family that we never once had any reason to care about, and the whole ''i'm a medieval fed ex guy who specializes in bi@!# work'' thing. 

 

But no, DA2 wasn't bad at all. In other news, COD is the second coming of gaming Christ, Gears of war will replace Homers Oddesy as a story for the ages, and Battlefield is an artistic achievement that rivals the mona lisa. ;D

 

I love it when people think their opinion is a fact. 

[AlanC9]

Off topic tangent but Kotor 2 wouldn't have been nearly as bad if Obsidian had been given appropriate development time to sort their **** out.

Or Obsidian shouldn't have attempted a design that they couldn't bring off within the contract period.

[TheJediSaint]

I love it when people think their opinion is a fact. 

They're wrong, of course.  My opinion is fact.

[Arl Raylen]

I think the connection between Kotor II is limited to the protagonist's strange power, and the main quest which deals indirectly with the main threat of the game (who happens to be one of your companions).

 

Though I suppose the biggest connection to Kotor II and Inquistion I can think of is the end. As in that throwing the Quiz into a 1v1 vs Corypheus after so much buildup was almost as bad as randomly finding myself on Malachor V with no direction.

 

That being said, Obsidian crafted wonderful characters and quests for Kotor II. And the dialgoue/choices were leagues better, but that's to be expected since it wasn't "open world".

 

Oh and the TSL Restore project helped a lot but in my playthrough of it Malachor was still buggy and it wouldn't let me finish the game. A shame.

[Arl Raylen]

Or Obsidian shouldn't have attempted a design that they couldn't bring off within the contract period.

 

There was what, a year and nine months between Kotor and Kotor II? (March 2003 - Holiday 2004?) I've replayed Kotor II multiple times and it's always a blast right up until Malachor, which is commendable seeing as the main story up until that point is longer than Kotor's.

 

If they ever rebooted the Kotor series (doubtful with TOR) I'd be happy giving the reigns back to Obsidian as long as they're giving development time. Right now they're two biggest recent games, Kotor II and New Vegas were both pretty dark good for have truncated development times.