820 réponses à ce sujet

[Quaddis]

Agreed I really don't understand this pushing for multiple races if at the end we are going to be forced to a single road where who we are isn't important but what we represent is. It's just an illusion of choice and not a proper choice because the world does NOT recognize you for the most part as a Dalish/Qunari or whatever but as the Herald of Andraste.....a generic individual.

 

I agree 500% with you. You are totally right. But same thing happened to Hawke, so you and RR are making a mistake of blaming multiple choice race for that. After almost half a dozen games i can see that there is problem with Bioware writing team here. 
If you make story driven RPGs in this time and age, you have to do some things they are not willing to do because they want profit margins CoD guy are making.

 

They need to get they **** together, commit to making story driven RPGs  and then we all, Hawk lovers and haters, Warden lovers and hater, casual and hardcore gonna dance in circle, sing Kumbaya a live happily ever-after because Bioware is awesome again.

[SofaJockey]

Silent protagonists are for players, who are able to use their imagination and they aren't dead as you can see in e.g. Pillars of Eternity.

 

As PoE is a polished 90's throw back, as far as AAA games are concerned, they are dead.

That's not to say it can't work in the indie market.

[jedidotflow]

I think I prefer the slightly more defined Shepard/Hawke format myself, but I feel like the devs have already moved away from that style, so I'd rather see them just stick with a direction now and develop that, rather than rebooting every game. There are pros and cons with each approach anyway. While a more defined protagonist would make the story more personal and is probably better for carrying choices and branching narratives over from game to game, it limits the kind of protagonists we're likely to see. You could expect more human noble types, since there would be little incentive to make a game around an Elven or Qunari protagonist. Even if I would find that really interesting, I'm sure I would probably be in the minority. At least with playable races you can justify the resources for the minority that wants to play as a Dwarf or whatever. So it's a trade off. The problem with iconic Shepard type characters is they introduce their own set of problems, like power and spectacle creep, when they appear in sequels. Shepard had to die just so that you could start over fresh. That gets old after a while too.

 

But that's because they redid the entire points allocation system. An imported save state game in ME3 transfers all the skills, or all the points, you had in ME2 and just rolls from there.

[Bfler]

As PoE is a polished 90's throw back, as far as AAA games are concerned, they are dead.

That's not to say it can't work in the indie market.

 

Hm, Obsidian is a developer of indie games?

[SofaJockey]

Hm, Obsidian is a developer of indie games?

 

Indeed, and if they develop a non-throw-back game it might work there too.

But for BioWare and probably other major studios, for AAA releases protagonists are unlikely to be unvoiced.

[Heimdall]

Agreed I really don't understand this pushing for multiple races if at the end we are going to be forced to a single road where who we are isn't important but what we represent is. It's just an illusion of choice and not a proper choice because the world does NOT recognize you for the most part as a Dalish/Qunari or whatever but as the Herald of Andraste.....a generic individual.

I want is to be able to create my own character. I don't need the game to react to every distinction at every junction to make that matter. It's a flavor choice, and I'm fine with that. People pushing for this aren't asking for five different games, just enough acknowledgements to make each character feel a bit different.

I was happy with what DAI did with the races. It could have been done better, and I wish there was more dwarf-Qunari content, but I don't want a return to human only.

[zestalyn]

I agree that playing a strong character is more important than having options that don't amount to anything. It's not even about only playing a human. I'd take only playing an elf or qunari protagonist if it meant Bioware could write a tighter story surrounding said protagonist.

I feel there are ways Bioware could've improved their multiple races option DA:I. Obviously it wasn't possible this time around given the rushed ending, but there could have been opportunities for race to have mattered. Like Iron Bull's dreadnought mish could've grown into something bigger for a qunari IQ, or varric's mish for a dwarven IQ, stuff where the IQ's origins could have played into the process of getting to the end. It was such a convenient move for the Breach to kill almost everyone in the IQ's life, cause that left IQ literally a blank slate

[Aulis Vaara]

For one, silent protagonists are a dead archetype.

RIIIGHT

That's why people sing praises to games like Divinity : Original Sin and Pillars Of Eternity.

[WildOrchid]

Tastes vary. I personally love Hawke/Shep/Quizzy more than warden, since i prefer my protagonists to be voiced. I have no issue with silent protagonists in games like Pillars of Eternity though because i don't have to watch my protagonist's face and see her emotions.

 

With rpgs like Dragon Age and Mass Effect where you see the protagonist interact with others in cutscenes, voice/emotions is necessary for many things imo.

[Heimdall]

Playing "a strong character" means pre-defining that character.

I have Mass Effect for that. I have the Witcher for that.

I don't need Dragon Age for that. I like being able to have roleplay.

[Sah291]

Agreed I really don't understand this pushing for multiple races if at the end we are going to be forced to a single road where who we are isn't important but what we represent is. It's just an illusion of choice and not a proper choice because the world does NOT recognize you for the most part as a Dalish/Qunari or whatever but as the Herald of Andraste.....a generic individual.

I actually thought DAI came a long way providing more reactivity to your race/class than ever before. There were a lot more references to your race than in Origins...even though it sometimes doesn't feel like it. The dialogue perks were a good idea. I think what was missing were the sides quests dealing with other races... If more of the regions had you getting involved in some Dalish or Qunari related quest line, it would have felt more personal and engaging to be a non human race I think. The Temple of Mythal felt pretty engaging to me playing as an elven Inquisitor (with the exception of that one bugged line that has you asking who Mythal is).

[Hanako Ikezawa]

I much prefer the ability to play as different races than having a set protagonist. In some games, that's fine. But options are the key component for a RPG. 

 

Bioware did well with the race options in DAI, and that was with them being added due to the extension. If they plan from the start or early on to have race options, it would work really well. 

[Quaddis]

As PoE is a polished 90's throw back, as far as AAA games are concerned, they are dead.

That's not to say it can't work in the indie market.

 

Hypothetically, if that game had better graphics and voice acted dialogue, it would sell like cupcakes. I look at it as a proof of concept

[Iakus]

As PoE is a polished 90's throw back, as far as AAA games are concerned, they are dead.

 

Bethesda disagrees

[Iakus]

For one, silent protagonists are a dead archetype. Thankfully, it seems BioWare has finally come to this conclusion and discarded any chance of ever having a dumbfounded main character awkwardly staring at everybody else while they talk for 50 hours.

 

Skyrim, Fallout, Pillars of Eternity.  The silent protagonist is not dead.  

 

Now I agree that voiced protagonists do provide certain benefits.  But the silent ones do as well.  So I'm not going to get bent out of shape over which gets used.

 

 

 

Secondly, multi-race selection with multiple backgrounds is bad for game development and storytelling. When there are so many variables and possibilities to consider, it dilutes and cheapens the overall story. The reason Shepard's story and even Hawke's story were so engaging is because they were more defined. However, in that definition, we also had more flexibility to shape their personality.

 

 

It depends on how the variables get used.  Again, Pillars of eternity gave a number of background possibilities, and what class, occupation, even race could factor into dialogue options, NPC reactions, how you handle a situation.  Rather than cheapening he story, it encourages replayability.

 

 

 

You can't do that with a silent protagonist or a main character who can be four different races with a dozen different backgrounds. There's just too many variables and not enough defined points. Giving players more choice and freedom negatively impacts the overall game and the story BioWare can create.
Thus, I believe the next protagonist in DA4 needs to be more akin to Shepard/Hawke and less so to the Inquisitor/HoF.

Six races, eight classes, more background combinations than I can easily count.  Pillars of Eternity handles it just fine.

[alex90c]

For one, silent protagonists are a dead archetype. Thankfully, it seems BioWare has finally come to this conclusion and discarded any chance of ever having a dumbfounded main character awkwardly staring at everybody else while they talk for 50 hours.

 

Secondly, multi-race selection with multiple backgrounds is bad for game development and storytelling. When there are so many variables and possibilities to consider, it dilutes and cheapens the overall story. The reason Shepard's story and even Hawke's story were so engaging is because they were more defined. However, in that definition, we also had more flexibility to shape their personality.

 

You can't do that with a silent protagonist or a main character who can be four different races with a dozen different backgrounds. There's just too many variables and not enough defined points. Giving players more choice and freedom negatively impacts the overall game and the story BioWare can create.

 

Thus, I believe the next protagonist in DA4 needs to be more akin to Shepard/Hawke and less so to the Inquisitor/HoF.

 

strange, i thought the backgrounds and different races in origins were done fine

 

sure, you go origin > ostagar > warden every time, but the few hours you spend in your regular life, and then the references to your race/background which are sprinkled throughout the game are a nice touch without bioware having to commit stupid amounts of resources to making the player feel like a special snowflake. a really small touch I liked for example was that if you, as a dalish, go to the brecilian forest alone you get greeted very warmly so as opposed to the more tense response you get with a full party, and obviously you get all of the relevant dalish dialogue when you perform that quest line.

 

the issue which people have mentioned here in the past and present is that DA doesn't know what it wants to be. the games are all distinctively different from each other because bioware have decided to use it as their franchise to experiment with different approaches with. with origins you have basically a traditional save the world RPG ported in to 3d graphics, DA2 seems to be more of an action adventure game with a not-so-traditional story (rags to riches is used in games but not as commonly as save the world), DA:I is then like an action adventure game which is at the same time hybridising bethesda world exploration with bioware story telling with mixed results. 

 

compare this to mass effect where basically the only thing that changes is that the graphics get better and the combat gets better. each game is "save the galaxy ... sort of", with the repeated elements of humanity making its mark in the galaxy and the races all trying to overcome their distrust of one another to work together. every game tries to be action-y, every game tries to have a tight story and the only time this really changes is at the very end of the third game where all the story elements go ****** up and starboy just says "oh by the way machines can't work together with humans please ignore the geth they don't count".

 

so do I want a shepard/hawke or an inquisitor/warden? I don't know. what I want is a bioware game to the DA:O or mass effect (any) standard. I enjoyed inquisition but the world immersion and storytelling suffered due to the resources that had to be committed to making all of the beautiful (though quite empty) zones I think. and they wanted to step away from DA2's story so they went back to a save the world power fantasy but went off the deep end a bit with the player basically being a flawless hero. whether we get a defined or not so defined protagonist, well it doesn't really bother me. defined ones don't bother me, but I do quite like the origins approach which is inbetween, giving you a backstory but enough room to roleplay with it but then a blank enough slate that you can form your own character and evolve the character - in a roleplaying sense - throughout the game through their adventures.

 

tl;dr we don't need a defined protagonist because reasons

[trevelyan_shep]

I wouldn't even consider buying the game if I couldn't choose who I want to play. I want to be able to have choices in who I play, what they do and how they end up becoming. I don't want to be forced to play as one species. That gets boring, and is over done in practically every game that is out there right now. This genre is RPG which guarantees a level of roleplaying. I don't want that aspect to be diminished over this.

[Fearsome1]

Thus, I believe the next protagonist in DA4 needs to be more akin to Shepard/Hawke and less so to the Inquisitor/HoF.

 

You know, I liked both Hawke & Shepard quite a bit, but having the option to create a variety of main characters works better for me. Bioware didn't seem to dilute the story of DA:O for including elves, dwarves AND humans as a potential Warden. Based upon that alone, your logic is dodgy at best!

 

Adding Qunari to the mix didn't break the mold or anything. Replayability gets a tremendous boost for this game allowing gamers to pick their hero. So, we didn't get to "play" the origins this time, but some back story elements are specified and that works okay for me. There may come a time when Bioware opts to have this franchise focus on a particular lead hero, but this game sold like hotcakes and I imagine they would take hard look before altering the mix on their next outing.

[Toasted Llama]

How Skyrim made any sense storywise if you didn't play as a Northmen?

I couldn't play as a High Elf due to the fact I had to kill fellow elves just because they are the big bad elven supremacist Thalmors......if I'm an high elf why should I care about it and why should I join the human side? Doesn't seem quite roleplaying for me.

[sarcasm]Oh sorry my bad, didn't know you were supposed to play the exact stereotype of each race.[/sarcasm]

If I want to play an altmer murdering altmer I want to make that decision myself and I want the reasons, however ridiculous they might be, to be thought up by myself. I want to built my own character, no matter how out of place they might even seem, perhaps the more out of place the better, as it puts my brain on overdrive to get a working, coherent background/history for that character.

Plus I mostly don't play as myself, so while I may not want to murder/stab/help x or y, my character might want to.

[Iakus]

I wouldn't even consider buying the game if I couldn't choose who I want to play. I want to be able to have choices in who I play, what they do and how they end up becoming. I don't want to be forced to play as one species. That gets boring, and is over done in practically every game that is out there right now. This genre is RPG which guarantees a level of roleplaying. I don't want that aspect to be diminished over this.

One of my favorite RPG games in recent years is Alpha Protocol, and Mike Thorton is even more defined than Hawke.  

 

But nevertheless yeah, more options is generally a good thing.  Which is why I'm enjoying Pillars of Eternity so much now 

[JamieCOTC]

DAI is the story of the Inquisition and not the Inquisitor. That was the big problem w/ the game for me. As much as I loved Shepard (in ME1 and ME2) for DA, I identified much more w/ the Warden than either Hawke or the Inquisitor. The reason being, for me, the time spent w/ the character before the main action and getting involved in his or her culture. The Inquisitor was originally human only, but BW took a year to add races. As much as I appreciate that, it's not as good if it had been races from the start. The story just didn't fit some races as well as others. Yeah, they did a good job w/ elves. I will say that. The other problem w/ DA:I is the choices in dialogue and tone we were given. So many times we had to either graciously accept a quest or just walk away. It's ironic that in a game this big w/ so much freedom we were given so little to work w/ as far as defining the character ourselves. The Inquisitor is strange in that though there's virtually no autodialogue (thank god) he or she seems more predefined than any character to date. And I think this comes from two things, one, being shoehorned into the role of the Inquisitor and two, the whole Herald of Andraste storyline, which in that I think they did a great job. The Inquisitor was just too hamstrung by the story to allow for much exploration of the character.  I like my main Inquisitor a lot, but I never connected w/ her the way I did w/ the Warden or Shepard.

 

There's a scene in the ME2 Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC in which Liara asks how Shepard is doing. It's just one scene, yet there is a range of responses that the player can chose from. Shepard can be vulnerable, stoic or angry. The rest of the conversion is autodialogue, but fits the tone of the previous choice. That should be the benchmark. DA doesn't need a predefined character. It needs a character with their own story we can shape.

[Nightshade715]

Secondly, multi-race selection with multiple backgrounds is bad for game development and storytelling. When there are so many variables and possibilities to consider, it dilutes and cheapens the overall story. The reason Shepard's story and even Hawke's story were so engaging is because they were more defined. However, in that definition, we also had more flexibility to shape their personality.

I haven't played Inquisition yet, but from my experience with games that offers several races to chose from, not once did the story felt cheapened because of it. For video games that suppose to be RPG's options are always a big plus.

 

It was said many times before that Dragon Age series are about the world of Thedas and not about Warden, Hawke or Inquisitor. Protagonist restricted to a single race works well if the games are about that protagonist like Mass Effect trilogy is Shepard's story or The Witcher games are Geralt's, but in the series where shaping the world is more important than the personal story of the protagonist, several playable races do not dilute anything, nor is it bad for storytelling. If anything, it can even enhance the experience.

 

To me, learning about different cultures like dwarves, elves and Qunari (and I find all three incredibly fascinating) while controlling a character who has absolutely nothing to do with said cultures, aside from possible curiosity, pretty immersion-breaking. For example: imagine how learning about the meaning of vallaslin would feel to a non-Dalish character.

 

My point that got lost in the rant above is: while implementation of several playable races in the games isn't flawless, it's still so much better than not having an option to chose at all.

[AlanC9]

Indeed, and if they develop a non-throw-back game it might work there too.
But for BioWare and probably other major studios, for AAA releases protagonists are unlikely to be unvoiced.

Going a bit OT here, but anyone have a ballpark figure for how much production budget you need for something to be called an AAA release?

[JeffKaos]

Am I the only one who remembers the Warden in Origins talking to other people? He just didn't have a voice. That was certainly a little odd considering that all of the NPC's were pretty much fully voiced but not a "game breaker". I guess I got used to it with BW's previous games like KoToR and Jade Empire. Anyway I actually don't really care for games where you play as "generic hero" like Hawk or Sheapard. Sure you can tailor a story much more to a specific character but when I play a "ROLE" playing game I want the role to be something I created. That's one of the reasons I stopped playing JRPG's. It's not that I don't like games like Mass Effect or the Witcher but I don't feel like I have as much agency in a game with a pre-made character as I do in games where I create them from scratch. And let's not ignore the 800 lb. gorilla in the room: when your dialog choices are basically: "goody two-shoes", "smart-ass" or "snide smart-ass" does it really matter much? Until I'm given the choice to ****** slap Corypheus, steal his orb and invade the Fade with my minions in order to make MYSELF a god I'll stick with playing the way I've been playing: creating a character I want, and come to the inevitable conclusion of the game where most of the choices I made have little to do with the ultimate outcome except for a few place cards during the epilogue and some off-hand references in the sequel. 

[guntar74]

Get rid of race restrictions on armors and I'll be all for multiple race options again.