934 réponses à ce sujet

[GoldenGail3]

He says unironically.

Like KOTOR? It's a single player MMO...

[CoM Solaufein]

Not FPS?

[GoldenGail3]

Not FPS?

What game is that? I don't mean to sound stupid or anything....

[straykat]

Like KOTOR? It's a single player MMO...

 

But at least it has the excuse of actually being an MMO.

 

In any case, I've never played it. I heard decent things though. But I got burned out on MMOs years ago.

[GoldenGail3]

But at least it has the excuse of actually being an MMO.
 
In any case, I've never played it. I heard decent things though. But I got burned out on MMOs years ago.

Decent things? It's more like EA trying to steal your money becuase you can't talk until your level 10 if your a free player. Like I am; and will always be.

[straykat]

Decent things? It's more like EA trying to steal your money becuase you can't talk until your level 10 if your a free player. Like I am; and will always be.

 

Ah.. I don't know details. I just heard it can be solo'ed and has a single player like story.

[elrofrost]

Ah.. I don't know details. I just heard it can be solo'ed and has a single player like story.

KOTOR is a lot of fun. But to get the most out of it you must subscribe. And yes you can play the whole game solo; even some major dungeons are now soloable. I see it moving toward more story based. 

 

But like any MMO, you still have to grind.

[GoldenGail3]

Ah.. I don't know details. I just heard it can be solo'ed and has a single player like story.

True but there other players though...

[Lord Snow]

KOTOR is a lot of fun. But to get the most out of it you must subscribe. And yes you can play the whole game solo; even some major dungeons are now soloable. I see it moving toward more story based. 

 

But like any MMO, you still have to grind.

 

You mean SWTOR (Star Wars - The Old Republic). That one's the MMO.

 

KOTOR (Knights Of The Old Republic) is the single player RPG made by Bioware in 2003.

[Wozearly]

I have to disagree with you entirely in this regard. I do not recall Hawke "interjecting" particularly often. They had the "dominant personality" auto-dialogue, but that's no different from the random expressions plastered over the face of the HOF during multiple scenes in DA:O (e.g. horror at the collapse of Wynne, etc.). More to the point, the character is not "yours" because your range of actions is always restricted. What most RPGs do to address this is to make the PC an incredibly passive actor - but that's not "freedom" if you want to have a proactive character, who does not defer to the NPCs and others in scenes. 
 
A voice allows a character to be proactive. This is important. As KoTOR and DA:O illustrate, you cannot have a proactive character in a 3D, VO'd world. There is a general failure of design in showing a proactive protagonist - almost every Bioware protagonist is very passive - but the addition of VO creates a means through which the player can actually drive the scenery instead of being driven by it. 
 
As for "Old Bioware" and "New Bioware", there is no such thing. KoTOR and JE represent quite clearly the design choices in ME1-ME3 and DA2/DAI. KoTOR made many moves toward "cinematic" to re-create the Star Wars experience. And even if we go back further, we see Bioware follow the same theory beforehand with BG1 and BG2. The made significant changes to create a far more narrative driven game at the cost of what were then considered features of RP - like the prototype open world, or the stronger and narrower characterization. 
 
I also disagree, fundamentally, with your description of DA:O. I think DA:O completely failed in its goal to realize a unique character. Rather, I think DA:O was as rigid as DA2 in the very narrow swath of characters it allowed. The view that DA:O supports multiple characters just comes from fallacious reasoning tied strongly with the lack of VO, but unsupported both by the way the story is structured and the way the dialogue for the PC was written. But these design points aside, the single greatest failing in DA:O is the complete failure to tie in the Origin stories with the Grey Warden plot. If you do not design a character who from the start wants to be a Grey Warden, the game just breaks down. 
 
A useful contrast here is ME1. In ME1, becoming a Spectre is automatic. But Shepard is never forced to identify as a Spectre. The game invests a great deal of resources in straddling the Systems Alliance/Council divide, and thus the Military/Spectre line. But DA:O does not do this - the dialogue, story, plot, structure, is all written with the absolute and unqualified decision that the PC is a GW, in the sense of identifying and adopting the role (ala Alistair, and unlike Anders). 
 
That's not per se a design flaw - DA:I does the same with the title of Inquisitor - but DA:O fails because 1) there is no actual option to react to the title in any meaningful way, apart from two simplistic statements to Wynne; and 2) the Origin story actively undercuts the idea of being a GW by giving you a great deal of flexibility in motivation. 
 
The other way in which DA:O does a poor job of character connection (not that DA:2 does better, though DA:I is absolutely far superior) is in expression. Very rarely will a PC get to react, emotionally, and express feelings. But DA:I built an entire system around it.

Any argument that the character is only *ours* if we have complete unrestricted control of all actions and decisions is moot. That's the most extreme end of the scale. There are shades of grey in between that and it's opposite, where you control the gameplay actions of the character, but their emotions and motivations are entirely fixed and you just watch that side of the story play out.

I admit, I don't immediately see how character proactivity is directly related to this, unless that proactivity can only be achieved by removing player control. DA2 and DA:I took this route on occasion, but from a game mechanics point of view there are other options to allow the player to decide to interrupt or not without necessarily breaking the flow of a scene.

In terms of Hawke's auto dialogue, no - he didn't interject particularly often. Nor did the Warden look horrified particularly often. It's not just the frequency, but also the severity of disconnect between your sense of your own character and moments where the game violates that by imposing a decision, reaction, etc. on your character which doesn't fit. I am not saying DA:O did it perfectly. I'm saying that DA2 did create this disconnect in more places, and sometimes in a more intrusive way. It's not just the auto dialogue, although there are some facepalm moments within it. For example, it's also surprises when the dialogue wheel choices causes Hawke to say something in a different way than expected based on the shortened version/emotion of the wheel.

Yes, the same is potentially true of limited choices in dialogue, or of story railroading. I agree that the Origin stories tended to fit slightly more neatly towards a willing acceptance of joining the Wardens, although having two reluctant Wardens in my playthroughs I disagree that the story breaks down but, obviously, YMMV. However, the Yes, No (yes) dialogue options in DA:O at the Origins closures are not fundamentally different from the Yes, No (yes) options in the early Inquisitor choices during DA:I or other Bioware games. You may be right that Mass Effect executed the illusion of choice more effectively in how the character engaged with the plot drivers compared to "You are a Warden/Inquisitor, Now Save The World"

I appreciate you have strong views on the benefits of a voiced PC, and views about the rationale of arguments made by people who arent sold on it. Does it help the designers create a character who can react less passively to the environment and the party? Yes. Does it give the character a better chance to express the emotion they're feeling? Yes. Does it tend to increase the risk of moments of disconnect between your character's actions/emotions and your view of your character? Yes. Is this part of what gets criticised as role-watching? Yes.

IMO, it's not as straightforward as "voiced is better, silent is worse". There are innate strengths and weaknesses from a design perspective, and it's better to see each as a tool in creating a style/feel of an RPG. There is greater potential in voicing, arguably, although in practice cost constraints tend to mean trade-offs. I don't personally see there being a right or wrong answer here.

As for "New Bioware / Old Bioware" I agree there isn't a formal distinction, but there is a difference in the type of games Bioware now creates and a number of people, myself included, draw a visible dividing line at somewhere between DA:O and DA2. DA2 learned from Mass Effect and evolved the franchise in a way I didn't personally like. DA:I learned from TOR when they evolved the franchise again, in many ways for the better, but led to a valid slur of it feeling like a singleplayer MMO in a way that, for example, other open world games like The Witcher 3 managed to avoid.

DA:I was, thankfully, a vast improvement on DA2. But the game it was designed to be isn't the type or style of game I would have personally preferred. Bioware clearly do know what they're aiming for, and are getting better and better at achieving it, and a lot of people love what they're doing - that's fantastic. I'm pleased both for those players and for Bioware as a studio. However, those evolutions haven't led to games that I personally love in the way that I loved KotoR and DA:O, despite the flaws present in each from a design and RPG perspective.

[Seraphim24]

Dragon Age Inquisition was a Skyrim Open World quest-a-thon clone, that's the main reason most people didn't like playing it.

[straykat]

Dragon Age Inquisition was a Skyrim Open World quest-a-thon clone, that's the main reason most people didn't like playing it.

 

TES do better environments though. And the more open nature always opened me up to play almost psychotically. I kinda compare them to GTA than most RPGs.

[Iakus]

OK. But why'd you mention need when you weren't actually talking about need? Or are you talking about need, and you think that really is the criterion? I'll certainly stipulate -- already did, in fact -- that the base DAI game fails to be challenging.

We may just disagree about how much fun that playstyle loses. I'm also not sure how adding more buttons would help with the problem. Wouldn't that just make game balance even worse than it was?

I kinda like blurring roles.  I like having the option to play a rogue who's not a glass cannon, though he may not be the best damage-dealer around.  Or letting warriors be something other than meat shields.  Heck my DAO mage drew spells entirely from the spirit and entropy line, except for a few buffs/heals from the Creation school.

 

Nowadays you can't do that.  

 

As for the button limit, restricting options aside, I find it silly any character only knows eight maneuvers at a time, regardless of how many skills they've actually trained for.  It's like spreading the Vancian system to all classes.

 

Like I said, I'd be a lot more upset about it if there were actually more interesting abilities to take, though.

[Elhanan]

In general, I agree. More Player controlled customization in Attributes, abilities, skills, spells, weapons, CC, etc. is a good thing, IMO.

[pdusen]

"Role-watching."

Same old arguments, new stupid buzzwords that don't actually reflect anything real.

[bEVEsthda]

"Role-watching."

Same old arguments, new stupid buzzwords that don't actually reflect anything real.

 

Thank you for your contribution.

 

 

'Role-watching' is a label. Labels help when you want to distinguish between things in a discussion. One could have used 'Jrpg' as well, but I prefer not to, since people tend to assume jrpg as rpgs where the distinction is where they are made, or perhaps art-style, even though a such distinction would be senselessly useless, and thus illogical to make.

 

Role-watching is the desire to have the crpg's animated representation of the protagonist to act out and express feelings and moods. Explicitly. For the gamer to watch. Hence the name.

Role-watching can - and would normally, unless the game's UI and writing is extremely sophisticated - interfere with and destroy role-playing connection between a gamer and his created character.

 

People who are used to role-watching playing and jrpgs, seem to normally be utterly oblivious of the difference. I made this observation years ago, and I haven't seen any discussion in these forums that indicate this has changed. It's in any case not something they seem prepared to recognize as being the least relevant. The results are posts where they sweepingly condemn and dismiss their opponents.

 

Coming from the other direction, things look very different. There is a gulf, - no, an abyss of difference. Making it actually two different genres of games. This doesn't mean that role-playing and role-watching are mutually exclusive. DA:I makes a credible job, IMO, of straddling the difference. But many games fall solidly to one side. Role-watching: TW2, TW3, DA2, FF...  Role-playing: V:TM-B, DA:O, ES, FO1-2, FO3...

[AedanStarfang]

Dragon Age Inquisition was a Skyrim Open World quest-a-thon clone, that's the main reason most people didn't like playing it.

Bioware/Dragon Age has/had better quests than Skyrim imo, plenty of Skyrim's were bugged where if you discovered a location or unknowingly picked up a quest item it would prevent you from starting said quest. 

 

Anyway, if Inquisition was a disappointment I'm assuming that it must have been minimal or at least nowhere near DA2 levels of disappointment since we actually got a DAI GOTY with all of the DLC, whereas they have yet to do that with DA2.

[Mountain]

Just make sure you're always having fun  when playing any game, whether it's an MMO or not.

[voteDC]

Something Inquisition lacks for me is the illusion that the Inquisitor is my character and to be honest, just like Hawke, that comes down to them being voiced.

In Origins when picking dialogue I could choose not only the line but hear in my head how it was being said, and indeed why. Was my Cousland telling Alistair she loved him because she really did, or was she using him as a means to take the throne.

Having Hawke and the Inquisitor voiced means the dialogue you choose is always going to sound the same.

I know that this os off-topic a little but I would honestly prefer a return to the silent protagonist.

[elrofrost]

You mean SWTOR (Star Wars - The Old Republic). That one's the MMO.

 

KOTOR (Knights Of The Old Republic) is the single player RPG made by Bioware in 2003.

Whoops.. you are correct. Thanks.

[CuriousArtemis]

So many questions have flooded my mind from this, I have to get them out there:

 

1. 6-12 months down the line will DA:I be viewed in a more positive or negative light? Will those who were harsh on the game gain more of an appreciation for it, or vise versa?

 

2. For those who don't like the game or were really disappointed, what's your attitude towards Bioware and the Dragon Age series at this point in time? Are you no longer a fan? Are you giving up on it? Do you have low expectations for it's future?

 

3. Are a lot of fans really disappointed with the game, or is this the voices of a few being really loud? When the dust settles, will there be a lot more positivity towards this game a few weeks from now?

 

I just think this will be fun/interesting to answer a year on down the road!

 

1. I believe it was initially viewed very positively and has since waned a little. Personally, my feelings toward it have cooled significantly. At this point I struggle to finish it thanks in large part to the poor pacing. The most fun I had was my second full playthrough, a modded Solas romance. First was an Iron Bull romance; I hated the romance, but a good enough story and exciting enough gameplay can help set that aside, but that never happened for me. I'm currently on a modded Cullenmance and struggling to finish. And I've dreamed about romancing Cullen for years upon years.

 

2. My attitude is contentment and mild confidence. I think ME:A will be pretty good. The next Dragon Age will likely also be good. The writers and developers are always growing (though sometimes in the wrong direction, particularly when they hang around the BSN or Twitter too much...) and there's always hope for the future. BioWare games are still the best (unmodded) games. I have to mod a game like Skyrim out the wazoo to truly enjoy it.

 

3. I suspect it was the voice of the few being loud. Lots of people loved the game out of the gate. I think people more likely to be critical of it now, now that we've all had a chance to breathe and reflect. The game was lengthy and awkwardly paced. The massive cast of characters made it difficult for all of them to be as richly developed as we're used to seeing in BioWare games. The story was a bite trite, the villain underwhelming. The character tropes were many: the sassy gay man, the promiscuous bisexual, the tsundere girl, the ice queen. Which didn't make them unlikable... self-confessed promiscuous bisexuals Isabela and Zevran are two of my franchise favorites.

 

Anyway, for me it was a disappointment, but... a beautiful disappointment, if that makes sense. It's a very beautiful game. But a game needs more than lovely environments to sustain it. 

 

Lastly, I feel Solas overshadowed the entire narrative and essentially stole it (from Corypheus, from a non-female elf inquisitor, from Cassandra, Varric, everyone and everything). I feel like the whole story needed a few more years of editing and rewriting. Sooo easy to say from the sidelines, I know lol

[Elhanan]

These so-called character tropes only may exist to those playing the game from a sexually focused viewpoint. Personally found Cole to be my fave new character, and loved to hate Vivienne. Nothing seemed worn, usual, etc to me at all.

[In Exile]

Something Inquisition lacks for me is the illusion that the Inquisitor is my character and to be honest, just like Hawke, that comes down to them being voiced.

In Origins when picking dialogue I could choose not only the line but hear in my head how it was being said, and indeed why. Was my Cousland telling Alistair she loved him because she really did, or was she using him as a means to take the throne.

Having Hawke and the Inquisitor voiced means the dialogue you choose is always going to sound the same.

I know that this os off-topic a little but I would honestly prefer a return to the silent protagonist.

 

Yeah, except that the dialogue is always meant to sound the same. I appreciate that to you this is a distinction, but the game was always designed to work the same way, which is why, 100% of the time and without exception, the dialogue is always interpreted to and reacted to in the same way. That doesn't happen when tone is variable. Regardless of your underlying motive, your Cousland always tells Alistair she loved him in the same tone, same voice, etc. 

[Addictress]

"DAI was a vast improvement on DA2."

I can't
I can't believe anyone can
I can't believe anyone can actually have this....opinion

My god

[Elhanan]

"DAI was a vast improvement on DA2."

I can't
I can't believe anyone can
I can't believe anyone can actually have this....opinion

My god

Not vast, but the end result is a far more complete and polished result, IMO; DAO > DAI > DA2.

And He is mine, too.