439 réponses à ce sujet

[ThreeF]

Sure some people may like the Fennecs running around while people are being ripped apart, but it still serves to undermine general mood setting. There's a reason certain color palattes and weather conditions are used to set mood for darker stories.

 

Point is you can go against such typical ideas for a change and have some very interesting results and it's not like it is something that has never been done before it's just easier to do something typical and familiar, than do something outside of the box.

[Saphiron123]

I agree with OP totally... we need that grittiness back. It was great, things like the brood mother, real tragic choices (only the choice in the fade was hard for me which is too bad).

[Vox Draco]

I agree with OP totally... we need that grittiness back. It was great, things like the brood mother, real tragic choices (only the choice in the fade was hard for me which is too bad).

 

Tragic choices is always in the eye of the beholder though ... I still laugh when people claim "Virmire" in ME1 is tragic and tough decision, I alwas laughingly leave Ashley behind and never think back of her again (just like the games did with that decisions as well ^^). Sometimes tragic works, sometimes not ...

[theluc76]

DAI is PG 13 because of the service skin, was done for sales. Want more mature and gritty, DAO is still there.

[nici2412]

DAI is PG 13 because of the service skin, was done for sales. Want more mature and gritty, DAO is still there.

I think it's pretty obvious the game is sanitized to make it more famliy friendly and reach a wider audience(and to not offend anyone). The one thing I don't understand is, why they decided to include nudity for the first time. Looking at all the design decisions Bioware tried to reach a as big as posssible audience, so why didn't they just left out the nudity, maybe scale down the gore/violence a bit and the game would probably get a teen rating, which means more sales.

[kcman5]

I agree with the game being too dainty, disney like..lol.. Even the one sacrifice in the fade was cheapened imo. I think that the game needed a lil more of the dark side to keep things real and in perspective. I mean after all you were fighting for the "end of the world" as we know it, so to speak. It shouldn't all be peaches and cream.

[Ashagar]

The thing is what is dark and gritty its very subjective and I honestly laugh when every anyone uses Disney like it could be a negative comparison, mainly because  I honestly have to wonder if they either never watched Disney movies or simply failed to notice the dark themes in many of its works.

[abisha]

always find it fascinating that people consider rain as depressing and moot setting.

weather nor light/dark settings do not set the "mood" into darker setting.

 

also i think they going over the top with the swamp with lighting strikes each second.

to many of X is counter productive like the fade rifts.

 

for instance why was their no day/night cycle, nor dusk/dawn settings.

[Lewie]

DA2 was dark enough I don't mind the change of pace, we are after all the leader of an 'army of the faithful', a dark tone doesn't fit the core of the story.

 

I can easily see the dark in DAI and it is strange to think people have become so reliant on the shock factor to feel or care about something in a story. 

[kcman5]

The thing is what is dark and gritty its very subjective and I honestly laugh when every anyone uses Disney like it could be a negative comparison, mainly because  I honestly have to wonder if they either never watched Disney movies or simply failed to notice the dark themes in many of its works.

I was referring to all the Happy Endings.

[Yukki]

@Yukki:
I don't agree. I think DAI is better in giving us plausible decision setups than DA2. Just think of the many variations of the Winter Palace plot, and who becomes Divine. The problem lies somewhere else: outcome symmetry. I.e. the phenomenon that every decision is an n-way fork where every outcome has equal narrative weight. DAO wasn't afraid to break that symmetry if that's what fit the story, most notably in the ending setups, who becomes king and Alistair sacrificing himself for a romanced Warden, Morrigans ritual etc.. That setup felt natural because it wasn't completely symmetrical. Not every decision can be made like that, but if all decision setups are symmetrical, the whole thing feels artificial. On the other hand, if the outcomes are asymmetrical one side will inevitably end up "lesser" in some way, which makes the decision unbalanced, and if *that* becomes a pattern - see ME's blatant Paragon bias - it's just as bad. Or worse, in fact. I don't think there is a perfect solution to this, but less symmetry here and there would make the world feel less artificial.

Anyway, I don't think that DAI's decision setups have much to do with the impression that the world is sanitized. It is more of a presentation problem. The world is not brought home to the player with as much impact as in DAO, or in DA2. DAO, I think, had a balance that worked, while DA2 went all-out on some elements which made the world feel like an evil parody at times. DAI is too tame.

I should mention that I think main plot elements only count in this insofar they connect to the everyday workings of the world. Corypheus' atrocities do not count because we not only can, but inevitably will excise them from the world completely. DA2 was better in this since its main plot was built on the everyday workings of the world (not denying that its presentation became implausibly extreme in the end which damaged its credibility).

Actually, I agree with much of what you just said. My comments on the grey middle ground and how later games have seem to have lost that actually was very similiar to what you just said, tho I understand that you didn't read my comments that way. Having those grey areas, gave you finer degrees of imbalance in the end than the current trend of black or white, good or bad, us vs. them that BioWare seems to have adopted more recently. Perhaps the real issue is the newer games are TOO balanced, and that doesn't even come close to mimicking what we experience in real life, which is full of varying degrees of really good, good, not so good, a little bad and really bad.

I will also agree that the stories in DAI for the most part seem isolated, and have little impact upon each other. In fact it was reaching the end of DAI and realizing this that made the game feel like such a disappointment to me. There was little in the DAI universe that really made me care, even the companion left me feeling, "blah..." something I have never experienced with DAO in all the times I have played the game.

[Yukki]

I'd agree with you if this was a book. But being relegated to written in-world documents sends the message "this is less important than what's on-screen".

You know, I think this impression of being less dark is connected with the matter of side-quests that feel less alive than in DA2 and DAO. Much of the "everyday darkness" we're not seeing in the world was brought home to us through sidequests. Prime example: that orphanage quest in Denerim's Alienage. There, too, the events were mostly in the past, but we actually hear ghosts talk, and the location is made for it.

DAI has Chateau d'Onterre (you mentioned this): the location feels very much appropriate, but we never hear or see anyone. We don't hear the voice of the girl, or her ghost, we only read it in documents. And that's the closest DAI ever comes to a bit of presence in a sidequest, along with the temple of Dirthamen. Those two are significant, but they drown in the sea of dryer sidequest where we don't even have an appropriate location.

Have you played Planescape: Torment? There are a number of scenes whose atmosphere depends to a large degree on the haunting voice of the woman loved and/or betrayed by the Nameless One, Deionarra. Without that voice, these scenes would feel...well, perhaps not lifeless, but much less alive.

In writing there is a technique called "show, don't tell." What this means is you need to actually experience the event yourself, with at least two or three senses, even as a bystander, for it to come alive and feel real. I find it amusing that you reference the Orpanage only because I've used the same example myself recently. In the Orphanage you had sound, the disembodied vouces that could chill you, you had sight with seeing all the carnage around you, both of these inspire feelings or shock or horror, again another sense comes into play. Then, at the end, the blind Templar dies, once again attacking your senses and emotions.

Reading a codex and experiencing the scene, even as a bystander is as different as being witness to a crime and only reading about the crime in the local newspaper, after the fact. Experiencing the event will always have more emotional impact than someone else just telling you what happened, as in the codex entries.

Btw, telling is highly frowned upon in the writing field and viewed as amatuerish, I'm sad to say.

[ThreeF]

^there are some "showy" things, but they are off the beaten path for the most part.

 

Corpses in the snow just lying around at Emprise du Lion with people just walking around, Carnage at Coracavus..... There are also some very realistic statues here and there that creep me out, because I'm pretty sure they were people once upon a time. Oh, and there are those creepy red totems things.

[Poison_Berrie]

always find it fascinating that people consider rain as depressing and moot setting.

weather nor light/dark settings do not set the "mood" into darker setting.

That's it. Thanks to you I'm reinstalling Mirror's Edge tomorrow. 

[Yukki]

^there are some "showy" things, but they are off the beaten path for the most part.

Corpses in the snow just lying around at Emprise du Lion with people just walking around, Carnage at Coracavus..... There are also some very realistic statues here and there that creep me out, because I'm pretty sure they were people once upon a time.

True, but these are isolated, and often have s codex or letter tossed nearby to explain the death. Again, you don't experience the person's death, you are told about it or what they were doing at the time. You don't have the same frame of reference to feel the emotional impact like you did at say DAO's Orpanage, where you actually hear the now dead children speak, where you find the remains of their bodies, only to have a demon who has been nearby and likely feasting on what little remains, leap out and attack you, and kill the quest giver you were just helping.

The difference is when you happen upon the Orphanage, the story is still very much in progress, even if you did join the story later than most. There is still a story to be experienced, a part you can play. You miss the chance at that role so many times in DAI because by the time you reached that dead body, their tale is ended. All that you have left is their news report on how they came to die. It's a curiosity piece, one more tale to add to the tabloid we call a codex, but not a tale that ever involved you in any real, meaningful way.

Just as a tabloid desensitizes us to the true impact of a tale, because it happened to them, not us, so DAI desensitizes us when they reduce an event to a mere codex entry. Because it happened to THEM, and their story never truly impacted or involved us, ever. We were never invested in caring about them to begin with, and a quick, bland diary entry isn't likely to change that.

[ThreeF]

True, but these are isolated, and often have s codex or letter tossed nearby to explain the death. Again, you don't experience the person's death, you are told about it or what they were doing at the time. You don't have the same frame of reference to feel the emotional impact like you did at say DAO's Orpanage, where you actually hear the now dead children speak, where you find the remains of their bodies, only to have a demon who has been nearby and likely feasting on what little remains, leap out and attack you, and kill the quest giver you were just helping.

The difference is when you happen upon the Orphanage, the story is still very much in progress, even if you did join the story later than most. There is still a story to be experienced, a part you can play. You miss the chance at that role so many times in DAI because by the time you reached that dead body, their tale is ended. All that you have left is their news report on how they came to die. It's a curiosity piece, one more tale to add to the tabloid we call a codex, but not s tale that ever involved you in any real, meaningful way.

I'm not disagreeing, they, for instance, missed an opportunity with the haunted mansion. When I first read the diary at the cliff I was expecting to see at least one ghost, instead i spend a lot of time reading and just had a mini boos fight. You only would need an ambient voice to make that place more involving. It is my impression that they run out of time on many things.

[Yukki]

I'm not disagreeing, they, for instance, missed an opportunity with the haunted mansion. When I first read the diary at the cliff I was expecting to see at least one ghost, instead i spend a lot of time reading and just had a mini boos fight. You only would need an ambient voice to make that place more involving. It is my impression that they run out of time on many things.

Exactly, to get us emotionally invested, they needed to somehow involve us in the story, even if it was something as simple as you described.

Too many confuse the window dressing, and our response to that, i.e. the skeleton, with engaging us in a tale. All this is doing is taking advantage of our natural revulsion at finding a decomposing human body. Using shock value in this way is NOT showing, it's just a realization that as human beings we are repulsed at the sight of our fellow man lying dead and decomposing. It's a cheap shot, a quick and easy way to get an emotional reaction without really investing or engaging you in the true story that mattered, which was the event that led to their death. It's the writer using shock value to replace what should be good storytelling.

[Steelcan]

Point is you can go against such typical ideas for a change and have some very interesting results and it's not like it is something that has never been done before it's just easier to do something typical and familiar, than do something outside of the box.

Sure its done by a lot of series, but its much trickier to do well, and if this is what DA:I was going for I think it didn't really work very well.

 

The creepiest parts of the game, Therinfall, Chateu D'Onterre, Temple of Dirthamen, and future!Redcliffe all play heavily on darker lighting and such, in the open world areas there is no real indication (to me) that they were trying to go for a contrast between how pretty everything is and what is going on

[In Exile]

True, but these are isolated, and often have s codex or letter tossed nearby to explain the death. Again, you don't experience the person's death, you are told about it or what they were doing at the time. You don't have the same frame of reference to feel the emotional impact like you did at say DAO's Orpanage, where you actually hear the now dead children speak, where you find the remains of their bodies, only to have a demon who has been nearby and likely feasting on what little remains, leap out and attack you, and kill the quest giver you were just helping.

The difference is when you happen upon the Orphanage, the story is still very much in progress, even if you did join the story later than most. There is still a story to be experienced, a part you can play. You miss the chance at that role so many times in DAI because by the time you reached that dead body, their tale is ended. All that you have left is their news report on how they came to die. It's a curiosity piece, one more tale to add to the tabloid we call a codex, but not a tale that ever involved you in any real, meaningful way.

Just as a tabloid desensitizes us to the true impact of a tale, because it happened to them, not us, so DAI desensitizes us when they reduce an event to a mere codex entry. Because it happened to THEM, and their story never truly impacted or involved us, ever. We were never invested in caring about them to begin with, and a quick, bland diary entry isn't likely to change that.

 

 

I disagree. There's nothing to that orphanage. There's nothing to be said for the element of darkness on a personal level because you're wholly immunized from it. It's all about whether the presentation resonates with you. And I think the presentation in DA:O of supposedly dark elements is even worse than DA:I, because Bioware just forgot in DA:O that we're an invincible killing machine. None of the common horror tropes work when any enemy is just a notch on the XP counter. 

 

The reason the Hespith poem works so well in DA:O is not because it tries to be horror in the traditional sense (terrifying for the protagonist in the game), but because it's mean to be revealing of the horror that another person went through. It's a harrowing poem, and it's reveled in a clever way, and we meet Hespith right at the end of the chain. 

[Yukki]

I disagree. There's nothing to that orphanage. There's nothing to be said for the element of darkness on a personal level because you're wholly immunized from it. It's all about whether the presentation resonates with you. And I think the presentation in DA:O of supposedly dark elements is even worse than DA:I, because Bioware just forgot in DA:O that we're an invincible killing machine. None of the common horror tropes work when any enemy is just a notch on the XP counter.

The reason the Hespith poem works so well in DA:O is not because it tries to be horror in the traditional sense (terrifying for the protagonist in the game), but because it's mean to be revealing of the horror that another person went through. It's a harrowing poem, and it's reveled in a clever way, and we meet Hespith right at the end of the chain.

I used a solid, proven and logical writing technique to pick apart the Orphanage scene, not one of those statements did you address. Instead you threw it out wholesale and declared it all invalid because in the game "you are a killing machine."

First off, you make the assumption that all I did in DAO was kill, I did not. 1.) There were several scenes thar allowed you to persuade or intimidate to avoid fights, and I took advantage of them. 2.) Whatever my character in the game may be, the game wasn't written for my character, it was written for me as the player to experience and in real life, I am anything but a killing machine, thus the Orphanage did and does have a strong emotional impact upon me and others.

It would be nice if you had actually addressed the points I actually did make, sadly you chose not to.

[In Exile]

I used a solid, proven and logical writing technique to pick apart the Orphanage scene, not one of those statements did you address. Instead you threw it out wholesale and declared it all invalid because in the game "you are a killing machine."

First off, you make the assumption that all I did in DAO was kill, I did not. 1.) There were several scenes thar allowed you to persuade or intimidate to avoid fights, and I took advantage of them. 2.) Whatever my character in the game may be, the game wasn't written for my character, it was written for me as the player to experience and in real life, I am anything but a killing machine, thus the Orphanage did and does have a strong emotional impact upon me and others.

It would be nice if you had actually addressed the points I actually did make, sadly you chose not to.

 

You've misunderstood my post entirely, and lamentably chose a passive-aggressive form of address in your response. 

 

I did not say that all you did in DA:O was kill. What I said was that the central element of horror - and darkness deriving from horror - is vulnerability experienced on a personal level. To make that kind of darkness work, the protagonist cannot be insulated from the purported danger that is being portrayed in the plot. In Dragon Age, the developers tried to include certain moments that borrowed storytelling mechanics from the horror genre without adopting the most central and defining element of the genre, which is that the protagonists are in a perpetual state of being threatened.

 

You "in real life" is completely immunized from the game. It may well be that the actual presentation resonates with you on a subjective level - but then in that case there's no real counter-argument you can raise to someone say, for example, that the mere showing of a burned out war-zone in the Exalted Plains resonates with them, based on their personal experience. 

 

As to the argument you put forward, it's factually incorrect and largely bound up in your particular subjective preference for storytelling mechanics. Let's say I accept that you need to "experience" the death of a particular character to have an emotional impact rather than read about it after the fact, which I disagree with entirely. We do not "experience" their deaths in DA:O. We have some very vague mechanics that hit a terrible fate in the same way that a 500 word paragraph codex would hint at you. In your post, you take the position that the sounds, etc. are somehow more emotionally meaningfully. Maybe to you, but that's nothing more than asserting a subjective preference for storytelling mechanism. I didn't want to address this in particular detail because there was no especially good way of phrasing this issue with the post, and so I chose to focus on the broader analytic problem with it which is your misunderstanding of horror as a genre. 

 

In any event, the fundamental premise of your post, that reading a newspaper article (which you derisively call a tabloid) about the death of another person is not emotionally impactful, is nonsense. 

 

Returning to the "experience" point, the notion is either meaninglessly vague or wrong. If by "experience" you mean actually see the death, then it's factually wrong because there are a great deal of wonderful stories - and storytelling mechanics - designed to elicit a reaction precisely where you have no other exposure to the death of a character besides second-hand accounts of it happening. If by experience you mean some form of elaborate exposure to that death, then you're wrong because - as DA:O and Hespith's poem itself illustrates - the actual amount of time and content that needs to be dedicated to portraying is quite small. And if by "experience' you mean see and not read, then you're clearly wrong since horror fiction exists. 

[hong]

I disagree. There's nothing to that orphanage. There's nothing to be said for the element of darkness on a personal level because you're wholly immunized from it. It's all about whether the presentation resonates with you. And I think the presentation in DA:O of supposedly dark elements is even worse than DA:I, because Bioware just forgot in DA:O that we're an invincible killing machine. None of the common horror tropes work when any enemy is just a notch on the XP counter.

This reminds me of a banter between Solas and Iron Bull that popped up yesterday. Bull talks about the scores of tal-vashoth he's killed, and Solas says that it must have affected him somehow. Something something "the mind does things to protect itself": it was obviously a reference to PTSD and/or turning into a monstrous killer. I guess he must have forgotten about the thousands of Venatori, red templars, freemen and bandits I'd slaughtered up to that point....

[Yukki]

You've misunderstood my post entirely, and lamentably chose a passive-aggressive form of address in your response.

I did not say that all you did in DA:O was kill. What I said was that the central element of horror - and darkness deriving from horror - is vulnerability experienced on a personal level. To make that kind of darkness work, the protagonist cannot be insulated from the purported danger that is being portrayed in the plot. In Dragon Age, the developers tried to include certain moments that borrowed storytelling mechanics from the horror genre without adopting the most central and defining element of the genre, which is that the protagonists are in a perpetual state of being threatened.

You "in real life" is completely immunized from the game. It may well be that the actual presentation resonates with you on a subjective level - but then in that case there's no real counter-argument you can raise to someone say, for example, that the mere showing of a burned out war-zone in the Exalted Plains resonates with them, based on their personal experience.

As to the argument you put forward, it's factually incorrect and largely bound up in your particular subjective preference for storytelling mechanics. Let's say I accept that you need to "experience" the death of a particular character to have an emotional impact rather than read about it after the fact, which I disagree with entirely. We do not "experience" their deaths in DA:O. We have some very vague mechanics that hit a terrible fate in the same way that a 500 word paragraph codex would hint at you. In your post, you take the position that the sounds, etc. are somehow more emotionally meaningfully. Maybe to you, but that's nothing more than asserting a subjective preference for storytelling mechanism. I didn't want to address this in particular detail because there was no especially good way of phrasing this issue with the post, and so I chose to focus on the broader analytic problem with it which is your misunderstanding of horror as a genre.

In any event, the fundamental premise of your post, that reading a newspaper article (which you derisively call a tabloid) about the death of another person is not emotionally impactful, is nonsense.

Returning to the "experience" point, the notion is either meaninglessly vague or wrong. If by "experience" you mean actually see the death, then it's factually wrong because there are a great deal of wonderful stories - and storytelling mechanics - designed to elicit a reaction precisely where you have no other exposure to the death of a character besides second-hand accounts of it happening. If by experience you mean some form of elaborate exposure to that death, then you're wrong because - as DA:O and Hespith's poem itself illustrates - the actual amount of time and content that needs to be dedicated to portraying is quite small. And if by "experience' you mean see and not read, then you're clearly wrong since horror fiction exists.

I strongly disagree, I am not immunized from the game, in fact my favorite type of fiction and games are those that make me stop and reconsider my own life and actions. I did not use passive aggressive behavior, never once did you, in any of your replies address the "show, don't tell" writing technique that I have been describing. Pointing out that you haven't isn't passive aggressive, it's simply stating what you have not done. The one that has missed the point is you, I'm talking established writing technique, something you have yet to address.

All I have been saying, and still am saying, is that a codex is telling, action scenes are showing. Action scenes have more emotional pull on us because they engage more of the 5 senses than telling does. It's the difference between watching a movie, and reading a review of a movie (i.e. the codex). Of course the movie, with it's actors, dialogue, musical score will have more of an emotional impact upon someone than the review. Mind you, this is not about if one likes or dislikes the movie, this is about how much more the movie engages your 5 senses than the review does.

And yes, how much of the 5 senses are involved does affect believability, though believability can be impacted by other factors as well.

I'm talking writing technique, you are talking and countering with a totally unrelated and much more subjective argument. One that I refuse to engage in since it is off topic from my point. As a result, I have little interest in arguing and/or proving you right or wrong on your choice of unrelated subject matter.

That is beside the point however, I am talking writing technique, while you have chosen NOT to talk writing technique. End of story.

[Seraphim24]

Well if you guys know so much freaking much why don't you make a dang game yourselves and sell a million copies eh?

[Yukki]

Well if you guys know so much freaking much why don't you make a dang game yourselves and sell a million copies eh?

Being a graphic artist I prefer spend time making other equally fun things, just because I chose to put my creativity in areas other than gaming doesn't make my points any less informed or valid.