107 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

I dislike that I lose control of the camera during conversations. I'd like to be able to move the camera myself to allow my character to pay attention to different things.

All the cinematics do is focus our attention on specific details, and that's not something the game should be doing for us.

[Majestic Jazz]

Completely agree with the OP, cutscenes make the experience that much better. Was very disappointed that they were removed. You feel more involved and engaged with the person you are conversing with. As it is now you get a sense of disconnection between your IQ and the person they are speaking to.

 

 

I don't connect well with a character if they're a little paper doll far away from me on the screen. I want to see their face and I guess it's not in the uncanny valley for me because this doesn't creep me out. Even the Fallout/Skyrim style of just zooming in for conversation works just fine for me. That's only one element of course, but it goes a long way in my eyes.

 

 

Exactly, but apparently there is a faction of people who would rather videogames not have cutscenes at all. Whether they are right or not, these people fail to understand that since KOTOR, Bioware fans have been accustomed to the cinematic style of their story-telling. Now I mean KOTOR cinematics are nowhere near that of ME3, but KOTOR was where Bioware left the old-school style of camera/dialog of Baulder's Gate/NWN and introducted the cinematic style of storytelling where the player is fully immersed into the dialogs and not disconnected so they can look elsewhere at.....trees in the distance like in DAI.

 

KOTOR and Jade Empire was the base for their cinematic style. Then came ME1 which really took it to another level. Besides the auto dialog of ME2 and ME3, Mass Effect as a trilogy was the pinnacle of cinematic storytelling for Bioware. DAO was more like an improved version of KOTOR/JE (I think DAO went into development around 2004 right after KOTOR) and DA2 was Dragon Age's first really step into the cinematic universe but again, not to the same level as Mass Effect. Then comes DAI and takes it back to the stoneage because they wanted a more "Skyrim" appeal just like Bioware toned down the RPG elements in ME2 cause they wanted to appeal to the "shooter crowd". It looks like Bioware has found their sweet spot in brands. They have SWTOR as their online component. Mass Effect as their cinematic scifi/rpg/shooter component. And Dragon Age which seems to be the new fantasy/rpg/open world (Skyrim) component.

 

We will see how ME4 turns out and if it continues this open world fetch quest/no cutscenes style like DAI. With The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 coming out, Bioware better be careful cause their reign of best Western RPG developer could come crashing down. Is appealing to the skyrim crowd really worth it?

[Elhanan]

Exactly, but apparently there is a faction of people who would rather videogames not have cutscenes at all. Whether they are right or not, these people fail to understand that since KOTOR, Bioware fans have been accustomed to the cinematic style of their story-telling. Now I mean KOTOR cinematics are nowhere near that of ME3, but KOTOR was where Bioware left the old-school style of camera/dialog of Baulder's Gate/NWN and introducted the cinematic style of storytelling where the player is fully immersed into the dialogs and not disconnected so they can look elsewhere at.....trees in the distance like in DAI.
 
KOTOR and Jade Empire was the base for their cinematic style. Then came ME1 which really took it to another level. Besides the auto dialog of ME2 and ME3, Mass Effect as a trilogy was the pinnacle of cinematic storytelling for Bioware. DAO was more like an improved version of KOTOR/JE (I think DAO went into development around 2004 right after KOTOR) and DA2 was Dragon Age's first really step into the cinematic universe but again, not to the same level as Mass Effect. Then comes DAI and takes it back to the stoneage because they wanted a more "Skyrim" appeal just like Bioware toned down the RPG elements in ME2 cause they wanted to appeal to the "shooter crowd". It looks like Bioware has found their sweet spot in brands. They have SWTOR as their online component. Mass Effect as their cinematic scifi/rpg/shooter component. And Dragon Age which seems to be the new fantasy/rpg/open world (Skyrim) component.
 
We will see how ME4 turns out and if it continues this open world fetch quest/no cutscenes style like DAI. With The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 coming out, Bioware better be careful cause their reign of best Western RPG developer could come crashing down. Is appealing to the skyrim crowd really worth it?

Or perhaps those folks do not care to recognize the many cut-scenes that are in DAI. Simply put, placing more for side-quest materials are a waste.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Exactly, but apparently there is a faction of people who would rather videogames not have cutscenes at all. Whether they are right or not, these people fail to understand that since KOTOR, Bioware fans have been accustomed to the cinematic style of their story-telling. Now I mean KOTOR cinematics are nowhere near that of ME3, but KOTOR was where Bioware left the old-school style of camera/dialog of Baulder's Gate/NWN and introducted the cinematic style of storytelling where the player is fully immersed into the dialogs and not disconnected so they can look elsewhere at.....trees in the distance like in DAI.

I want to be immersed in my character's perspective, and losing control of the camera (indeed, this constant switching back and forth of the UI) interferes with that.

When DAO was being developed, I fully expected it not to have cinematic conversations. After all, it was being developed for PC (it was initially PC exclusive), and none of BioWare's other PC games had had cinematic conversations. ME and KotOR had even had console-exclusive releases, with the PC versions not even being announced until after the console release.

So I equated the cinematic conversations with console games, and DAO wasn't one.

I was also surprised when they voiced the protagonist in DA2, given how badly I thought that experiment failed in ME.

But after DA2 and the ME series, it really did seem as though BioWare had abandoned me and my preferences. Some of the devs even warned me that I wouldn't like DAI.

Lucky for me, we were all wrong about that.

[Farangbaa]

I feel the conversation system still needs work. My character was talking to someone in the DLC and some little tusket or whatever they are wandered too close and broke the conversation off.
happened 3 times.

my solution would be to freeze everything when in conversation.
Zoom in would be nice too. It's a 3D engine it shouldn't be a problem, it's what they do.

But the ability to just walk away from a conversation is one of the reasons they didn't turn every conversation into a cutscene (aside from obvious reasons like time, money and difficulty)

[uzivatel]

Also do fetch quest still live on in this dlc?

My aim is to see if Bioware took some of the main complaints about vanilla DAI and fixed it for the DLC or continued with the same single player MMO gameplay design with FEW cutscenes and loads of codex books/notes.

Less than two hours later...

This new DAI is nothing more than a new zone full of fetch quest. This is different from a story driven mission like Wicked Eyes or Abyss which is what I thought this dlc would be like.....instead it is a mmo style zone.

You played through the DLC pretty fast.

[BabyPuncher]

I dislike that I lose control of the camera during conversations. I'd like to be able to move the camera myself to allow my character to pay attention to different things.

All the cinematics do is focus our attention on specific details, and that's not something the game should be doing for us.

 

That is utterly ridiculous.
 

[Majestic Jazz]

That is utterly ridiculous.

Yeah, this is also the same guy who said that ME was a failure in terms of a voiced protagonist. Just ignore him.

[Sylvius the Mad]

That is utterly ridiculous.

No it isn't. That's what roleplaying is: seeing the world from another's perspective. But that doesn't work if the perspective is chosen for me, because then it will bear no relation to my interpretation of events.

What is the point of playing my character if I don't get to decide what he thinks about what's happening around him?

The camera is part of that. The last game in which BioWare handled conversations properly was NWN.

[Majestic Jazz]

No it isn't. That's what roleplaying is: seeing the world from another's perspective. But that doesn't work if the perspective is chosen for me, because then it will bear no relation to my interpretation of events.

What is the point of playing my character if I don't get to decide what he thinks about what's happening around him?

The camera is part of that. The last game in which BioWare handled conversations properly was NWN.

Well then go play NWN. This is 2015 and games have moved to a more cinematic state.

Think Halo, Metal Gear Ground Zeros, Mass Effect, Uncharted 3, God of War 3, and The Witcher 3.

[Zatche]

Well then go play NWN. This is 2015 and games have moved to a more cinematic state.

Think Halo, Metal Gear Ground Zeros, Mass Effect, Uncharted 3, God of War 3, and The Witcher 3.

While I personally would enjoy more cinematic content, I can't agree with your reasoning here. Modern mainstream games do something so Dragon Age must do it too? Just because it's 2015 and there exists a trend in mainstream modern games towards more cinematics doesn't mean cinematics are good.

My reasoning would be that I enjoy a mix of drama and role playing, I like to be emotionally invested in the characters, and cinematics can help enhance that.

I don't expect Sylvius to agree with that, but that's okay. I'm certainly not going to tell him to play a different game even though he is clearly enjoying this one just because our preferences don't align.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Well then go play NWN. This is 2015 and games have moved to a more cinematic state.

Think Halo, Metal Gear Ground Zeros, Mass Effect, Uncharted 3, God of War 3, and The Witcher 3.

Those games exist today because they can (and couldn't before). But the games that could exist before can still exist, and they can be better today.

I'd also like to point out that most of the games you listed are not roleplaying games, so I question their relevance.

Furthermore, I don't like any of them. I despise action mechanics, and that's all most of those games are (only ME offers a no-action gameplay option, and only the first ME game was any good).

But my distaste for those games has little to do with the cinematics. The Witcher's combat is an unplayable mess. I'll admit I know almost nothing about any Metal Gear or Uncharted games. God of War (the first one is the only one I've seen played) was just mindless action with gimmicky timing-based boss fights.

Cinematic games are good at telling me a story.

Being told a story doesn't interest me in the slightest.

[Realmzmaster]

Well then go play NWN. This is 2015 and games have moved to a more cinematic state.

Think Halo, Metal Gear Ground Zeros, Mass Effect, Uncharted 3, God of War 3, and The Witcher 3.

 

Why should Sylvius the Mad go play NWN when Bioware has delivered a game and dlc that suits his playing preference? He could easily say why don't you go play Halo, Metal Gear Ground Zeros, Mass Effect, Uncharted 3, God of War 3 and when it comes out Witcher 3. Let Bioware continue to provide games that met his criteria.

[Sylvius the Mad]

My reasoning would be that I enjoy a mix of drama and role playing, I like to be emotionally invested in the characters, and cinematics can help enhance that.

I also like to be invested in the characters, but cinematics interfere with that rather than enhance it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Why should Sylvius the Mad go play NWN when Bioware has delivered a game and dlc that suits his playing preference? He could easily say why don't you go play Halo, Metal Gear Ground Zeros, Mass Effect, Uncharted 3, God of War 3 and when it comes out Witcher 3. Let Bioware continue to provide games that met his criteria.

I'd be happy to see people who would enjoy it embrace The Witcher 3. If that game gives them what they want, perhaps they'll stop asking BioWare to shoehorn those features into a game that doesn't need them.

[Eelectrica]

I think games like SR:Dragonfall prove that cinematics aren't required for an RPG to be good.

A good story and dialogue I think are somewhat essential. Of course what constitutes a good story is a moving target.

[ashwind]

To me cinematic conversation is not inherently good and the free camera conversation is not inherently bad. A mixture of them is what I personally prefer.

 

The problem with older games that uses cinematic conversation excessively is that simple conversations takes longer to play out. Worse still when you run out of conversation options. When talking to normal non essential NPCs, I much prefer the free camera conversation approach. You even run into odd moments when you accidentally click on an NPC in the middle of combat and the game pauses to bring you the cinematic conversation.

 

The problem with free camera conversation is that you can be interrupted and you may lose an entire conversation sequence. For example, I was talking to Hawke and a silly wolf decided to interrupt me. After I took care of the wolf, Hawke will not talk to me on the subject again and I lost the entire sequence of conversation there. I was forced to load a much earlier save and replay for I dunno how long to get that conversation.

 

Therefore, non vital conversations should be presented in the form of free camera conversation while vital conversations should be cinematic.The devs simply need to figure out which conversations need to be cinematic and which not.

[eevee87]

can the DLC be done after the main campaign or is it best to tackle it before the end?

[Realmzmaster]

can the DLC be done after the main campaign or is it best to tackle it before the end?

 

The dlc can be tackled at anytime, but the recommended level is 20. The level range is between 20 and 26 which makes it more difficult than Hissing Wastes and Emprise du Lion. The story in the dlc is not directly related to the main story. 

[eevee87]

The dlc can be tackled at anytime, but the recommended level is 20. The level range is between 20 and 26 which makes it more difficult than Hissing Wastes and Emprise du Lion. The story in the dlc is not directly related to the main story. 

 

kk thank you!

[Nefla]

No it isn't. That's what roleplaying is: seeing the world from another's perspective. But that doesn't work if the perspective is chosen for me, because then it will bear no relation to my interpretation of events.

What is the point of playing my character if I don't get to decide what he thinks about what's happening around him?

The camera is part of that. The last game in which BioWare handled conversations properly was NWN.

I want to see the face of the person I'm talking to. I can't engage with a nameless little blip on the screen.

[Majestic Jazz]

I'd be happy to see people who would enjoy it embrace The Witcher 3. If that game gives them what they want, perhaps they'll stop asking BioWare to shoehorn those features into a game that doesn't need them.

Well I am hoping that is the consequence. See, I really do like Bioware since KOTOR and their approacb to storytelling, but I do not want them to go on without meaningful competition.

CD Projekt Red is on the rise and The Witcher 3 will be a huge hit this year. I would go as far to say that had Witcher 3 released in 2014 as planned, DAI would NOT have won as many GOTY awards as it did. Furthermore, CD Projekt Red represents what Bioware was prior to the EA buyout, a RPG company making RPG games for RPG gamers. The Witcher 3 isnt aimed at trying to win over shooter fans or fans from another style of RPG (like how the Elder Scrolls crowd was courted with DAI instead of DAO fans), no, CD Projekt Red sticks to their core base and makes the best game for THAT base. You or anyone else would have to be naive to believe that Bioware has not "lost" direction since going under EA.


That is why I want The Witcher 3 to be a 2015 smash hit and in a lot of ways, I want Cyberpunk 2077 to blow Mass Effect 4 out of the water assuming they release around the same time. Maybe then Bioware would go back to stop trying to reel in outside bases (like DAI being meant to draw in Skyrim fans cause Skyrim was a great $$$ succes) and just focus on their core base.

Great Kingdoms and Empires always fall. They fall due to their own arrogance/ignorance or due to changing of times and failing to adapt to the changing times....due to arrogance or ignorance. With the eager CD Projekt on the rise, Bioware/EA better get their act together. Yes, DAI was pampered with GOTY awards but to be fair and reasonable, 2014 was a slow/bad year in games so dont act like DAI had tough competition. Much of the 2014 favorites like Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3 was pushed into 2015. Other 2014 favorites like Destiny and Watchdogs just were DOA.

So yeah, I do hope Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 garners more respect than DAI in order to light a fire under Bioware to make them come back down to Earth.

If Bioware fails to tell great cinematic stories, then other WRPGs will and we shall see who wins out $$$ wise and if it doesnt go in Bioware's favor, well see how long EA allows that to last and possibly DA5 or even DA4 would not go the route of DAI.

[The Hierophant]

I'd prefer it if the team adopts that camera zoom during convos mod.

Sad that mods can't be used now.