264 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

Let's try a thought experiment. Go through an entire day without mentioning a single experience that happened prior to this conversation, starting now. Actually, go through about 20 years with that approach and see how things end up. That's what a PC would be like, if we took your approach. Not to wax philosophical, but "we are the sum of our experiences" and all that.

 

What you're actually advocating for is a game where the PC has no history prior to the opening credits, which is pretty weak as role-playing concepts go. Your character has a history and these aspects influence who he is in the present sense.

 

And if we're actually talking about reality, it's the mundane stuff that's going to be hard to avoid. And that isn't featured in games. Here's an example: talking about this one time you had a blast with your friends going out to a pub. That's the kind of story that usually features in conversation. But it's exactly the sort of thing that's impossible in games. DA:I is actually notable on this front - during Varric's card scene - when the Inquisitor can tell a story. 

[Iakus]

Sure, but I think it's also an estimate of how much reactivity you're getting vs. what you're giving up. In Jade Empire's case, I think I can count on one hand the number of times someone actually mentioned my character's dragon tattoo. In that scenario, I'd rather have the character creator, albeit requiring more zots to put in.

Probably at least one more time than is commented on how Renegade Shep looks like a Sith Lord who tried shaving with his lightsaber 

 

But yes asking for a lot of reactivity to how a player managed the CC is asking a lot.  At best, you're going to drastically reduce the number of options since there's only so many zots you can put into that kind of thing.  Jade Empire could have the occasional mention of a blue vest or a dragon tattoo specifically because these were preset appearances. 

 

So do you all want a detailed character creator, or reactivity to your appearance?  Odds are, you can't have both.

 

re: surnames  Odds are any character we will ever get is going to have a set surname like "Hawke" or Shepard" or a set title like "Inquisitor" or "Commander".  Or both.  This is the price for having voiced characters.  In the old days of Baldur's Gate or the early Fallout games, you could give yourself any name you wanted and people will call you by name.  Because text is way easier to manage on details like this.  Add in voice acting, and now you have to account for every possible name the protagonist can have.

 

re:  family  While yeah it limits what kind of background you can have for a character, it doesn't (or shouldn't) limit how your character feels about your family.  Do you love them?  Can't stand them?  Ambivalent?  Have you drifted apart?  

[Il Divo]

And if we're actually talking about reality, it's the mundane stuff that's going to be hard to avoid. And that isn't featured in games. Here's an example: talking about this one time you had a blast with your friends going out to a pub. That's the kind of story that usually features in conversation. But it's exactly the sort of thing that's impossible in games. DA:I is actually notable on this front - during Varric's card scene - when the Inquisitor can tell a story. 

 

Exactly. We could always put aside the more "dramatic" character motivations, like revenge. But in terms of generating a real conversation, those mundane moments go a long way.

 

Personally, I think the best role-playing occupies that "sweet spot". Instead of the blank slate, I much prefer it when you have some wiggle room to explain how you feel about that background. One aspect of DA:I I appreciated too, were those persuasion options to bring up my character's origin story as a relevant point to my current interactions.
 

[Il Divo]

Probably at least one more time than is commented on how Renegade Shep looks like a Sith Lord who tried shaving with his lightsaber 

 

But yes asking for a lot of reactivity to how a player managed the CC is asking a lot.  At best, you're going to drastically reduce the number of options since there's only so many zots you can put into that kind of thing.  Jade Empire could have the occasional mention of a blue vest or a dragon tattoo specifically because these were preset appearances. 

 

So do you all want a detailed character creator, or reactivity to your appearance?  Odds are, you can't have both.

 

re: surnames  Odds are any character we will ever get is going to have a set surname like "Hawke" or Shepard" or a set title like "Inquisitor" or "Commander".  Or both.  This is the price for having voiced characters.  In the old days of Baldur's Gate or the early Fallout games, you could give yourself any name you wanted and people will call you by name.  Because text is way easier to manage on details like this.  Add in voice acting, and now you have to account for every possible name the protagonist can have.

 

re:  family  While yeah it limits what kind of background you can have for a character, it doesn't (or shouldn't) limit how your character feels about your family.  Do you love them?  Can't stand them?  Ambivalent?  Have you drifted apart?  

 

Very true, though as personal preferences go, a named protagonist bothers me less than a pre-generated appearance. Every technique has benefits and trade-offs. It's just that in this case, I can't see appearances being mentioned that wouldn't eventually feel like the devs were trying to meet some reactivity quota.
 

[Queen Skadi]

We come back to the "past" because, as an empirical matter, people talk about it a lot. But it's the same with the "present" in a blank-slate game. You don't get to talk about your ongoing motivation to do things, or reflect on why you did anything during hte course of the game. The beloved blank slate games, like Skyrim, don't even let you comment on on-going motivation. 

 

But more to the point, human beings don't spring up fully formed out of the aether. The fact that I grew up in, say, England in a wealthy family while playing semi-professional rugby and studying classical philosophy is quite a different background from growing up in rural China, and being a clasically trained pianist. You can't not talk about your background, or have people react to that background in a menaingful way. To have the game treat these two people identically means, essentially, that you've created a game where your choices - "you" - are totally an irrelevant widget in the plot. There's just the "Protagonist", and every bit of fantasy you invent about that character is shuffled off to the side as irrelevant because it can't feature. 

 

And with "blank slate" games, that usually also extends to the on-going part of the game. 

 

Yeah because Skyrim is the ultimate example of what a roleplaying game can be? Give me a break, while it is true in the real world the past is an important aspect of what defines us giving the character a past in a video games leaves little room for the player to define their own character, in essence everyone who picks up the game will be playing the same character with the same motivations rather than being able to define their own which is what i feel a roleplaying game should be about.

 

Just because a game does not saddle the player character with a past does not make that character and their motivations irrelevant, it merely gives the player more freedom to define their own character's motivations, it places more importance on the events in the game that actually matter rather than the events that are never experienced, the motivation for your character doing things are revealed as your character does them, the world responds to who your character becomes through the choices made by the player rather than reacting to who the game already decided they will be without input from the player.

 

In a game like Origins the character's past plays little to no role in their ongoing motivations for trying to defeat the Archdemon, in the end the motivation for joining the wardens boils down to the same one line motivation that you were forced into the wardens due to circumstances beyond your control, while the origin stories do give a little more context for how that happened it is just as easily a motivation that can be headcanoned by the player without placing restrictions on who their character is for how much it matters to the plot.

[Daemul]

I always go with the default option in Bioware games anyway so this wouldn't bother me at all. 

[Queen Skadi]

No, Sarif's lawyers/doctors go out of their way to point out that, while he may have gone overboard with the augmentations (he removes a couple of extra limbs), that Adam's injuries were severe enough to require noticeable augmentations. They note that he had at least one whole limb missing, as I recall. That's more than enough to stand out in a crowd, amongst other things.

 

Well yeah it is obvious they had to replace his arms but is there any explanation given for the cyber sunglasses and whatnot? Again beside the point.

 

Let's try a thought experiment. Go through an entire day without mentioning a single experience that happened prior to this conversation, starting now. Actually, go through about 20 years, to put you in line with the age of a Bioware character, with that approach and see how things end up. That's what a PC would be like, if we took your approach. Not to wax philosophical, but "we are the sum of our experiences" and all that fun stuff.

 

What you're actually advocating for is a game where the PC has no history prior to the opening credits, which is pretty weak as role-playing concepts go. Your character has a history and these aspects influence who he is in the present sense.

 

 

We are talking about crafting a video game, not real life, obviously in a video game you can only do so much so some concessions must be made, if you want the character to talk about their past then you need to give them a pre-defined past but this comes at the cost of allowing the player to define their own character, if you want the player to be able to define their own character then you either need to have the past be a blank slate or give very vague options when describing that character's past (I was rich, I was poor, I grew up an orphan, I don't want to talk about it mind your own ****** business ect, you can't really go into much detail about which orphanage they grew up at or which family they descended from) and give the player more opportunities to define their character through events and actions that actually happen in the game rather than before it begins.

[Il Divo]

Well yeah it is obvious they had to replace his arms but is there any explanation given for the cyber sunglasses and whatnot? Again beside the point.

 

 

But why would that ever matter? Again, you're calling attention to specific physical details that, in the grand scheme of things, are meaningless. Deus Ex does not go out of its way to establish "cyber sunglasses" as a topic of conflict in-game. Augmentations, as a general topic, are the topic under contention. You just conceded that Adam is obviously augmented, from any bystander's viewpoint. By what reason are more people going to draw attention to his specific augmentations vs. the general fact that he's augmented at all, in noticeably super-human ways?

 

We are talking about crafting a video game, not real life, obviously in a video game you can only do so much so some concessions must be made

 

 

Still not the best argument to go with, given that Bioware games do everything in their power to reference past events. We have an entire codex devoted to it and a huge cast of characters, all of whom, have backstories that they reference quite a bit in various ways.

 

Even in that gaming context, the idea that our PC is the only person in the entire galaxy incapable of expressing a single thing about his past is pretty insane.

[Felya87]

Well yeah it is obvious they had to replace his arms but is there any explanation given for the cyber sunglasses and whatnot? Again beside the point.

 

 

 

Actually, even Jensen's eyes aren't his own anymore, but very sophisticated cameras. Not very human like. The glasses are useful to at least camoufage the shiny-non human eyes.

[Queen Skadi]

But why would that ever matter? Again, you're calling attention to specific physical details that, in the grand scheme of things, are meaningless.

 

The Trevelyan Inquisitor's drunken aunt is meaningless in the context of the game, the tournament won by the Cousland Warden before the game even begins is meaningless in the context of the game, changes to Jensen's appearance based on what augmentations the player chooses to get would actually reflect the decisions the player makes in the game giving them far more significance to the player.

 

Does the Inquisitor's drunken aunt (that you never get to meet and has no effect on the game whatsoever) change how other character's react to your character? How about the tournament? Apart from that one off reference in the origin story how does it effect how the rest of the game plays out?

 

You are trying to argue that visual changes that reflect the player's choices are meaningless yet useless and inconsequential tidbits that the player has no input in and are meaningless to the player are somehow vital to the roleplaying experience? Surely even you must realize how stupid that sounds? 

 

Still not the best argument to go with, given that Bioware games do everything in their power to reference past events. We have an entire codex devoted to it and a huge cast of characters, all of whom, have backstories that they reference quite a bit in various ways.

 

Even in that gaming context, the idea that our PC is the only person in the entire galaxy incapable of expressing a single thing about his past is pretty insane.

 

 

Why is it absolutely vital that the player character gabs about their past? Not everyone is so eager to talk about their past at any given opportunity and some don't like to speak of it at all, one of the biggest flaws of Bioware's recent games is how they place far more significance on events in the past than events in the actual game, if the events in the characters past are so interesting then why not just base the game around them?

 

While a backstory and past events can be useful in explaining the motivations and demeanor of other characters in the universe when it comes to the main character who's motivations and demeanor should be the player's to decide it is best to leave the backstory blank for the player to fill in the gaps, sure it will never get mentioned in the game but that is one of the concessions that must be made, it is still a far better alternative than forcing a pre-defined backstory on the player.

[Queen Skadi]

Actually, even Jensen's eyes aren't his own anymore, but very sophisticated cameras. Not very human like. The glasses are useful to at least camoufage the shiny-non human eyes.

 

The glasses are surgically attached to his head, surely that is a far bigger giveaway than augmented eyes.

[mopotter]

No.  I love JE but not as much as I loved making 20 or more Shepards, and my many Inquisitors.  The face and name are part of my game plan, I'd hate to lose those options.

[Felya87]

The glasses are surgically attached to his head, surely that is a far bigger giveaway than augmented eyes.

 

Not really. In the end, are just glasses without wands.

 

[Kappa Neko]

I'm fine either way...

 

I love CC and it DOES make me feel more connected to my character. But if all I get for CC is this doormat cipher of an inquisitor again, then I'm all for an interesting set protagonist.

The important thing for me is that I can decide how my character reacts to things. The more varied and complex the narrative customization is, the more a character will feel like "my own" even though it's not really. Because thousands of people will perhaps have made the same choices that I did with my character. But it doesn't matter. It's all about the illusion of having a unique experience.

Being able to customize the protagonist potentially adds a genuine unique element, but let's be honest. Most Shepards, Hawkes and inquisitors all look pretty much the same... again, it's still mostly about the illusion.

 

I'll trade a custom face/sexuality for a good backstory in a heartbeat. Default female and male Hawke were so appealing to me, I almost went default for the first time. DA2 was the closest to a set protagonist of the Bioware games I played. AND I LOVED IT!!!

I loved playing a character with a family. I loved the more personal approach. In most games it doesn't matter who you were before, all that matters is who you become. Not so in DA2. Hawke's family is the driving force behind everything.

So yes, throw spouses and kids and childhood friends at me! ^^

 

The important thing for me is immersing myself in characters. I can do that with a preset face or one I created myself. I can do that with a preset background or none.

However, my personal preference is narrative over freedom. I'm very fond of my Skyrim character. I have established in my head what kind of person she is and acted accordingly. But nothing beats stuff like Liara's time capsule... there is no emotion in a game unless narrative dictates it. How much influence I had over it doesn't matter to me. Emotion matters to Bioware's characters. What's up to me is how much I emphasize with them. Which usually means going with what Bioware presents me with. Bioware designs their heroes as good people. You get the most out of it if you play that way. The scripted emotions only make sense if you do. You CAN play a rude ******* but then the scripted emotion will create disconnect.

 

In other words, as has been said, Bioware characters are at least partially preset anyway. It would make more sense to me if they went fully preset rather than take the Elder Scrolls approach. I'm fine with either partially preset or fully preset. Not looking for the Bethesda experience in Bioware games.

[Il Divo]

The Trevelyan Inquisitor's drunken aunt is meaningless in the context of the game, the tournament won by the Cousland Warden before the game even begins is meaningless in the context of the game, changes to Jensen's appearance based on what augmentations the player chooses to get would actually reflect the decisions the player makes in the game giving them far more significance to the player.​

 

 

It would reflect those "decisions" in the most non-sensical manner possible. Skyrim did something similar, where reactivity meant characters whispering "Hail Sithis" in passing. Of course, luckily, Skyrim didn't have to sacrifice the character creator to do so, which would be more than likely with the Jade Empire approach. It's actually even worse in this scenario since many of Adam's augmentations are under the radar and again given HR's overall setting, means virtually nothing compared to the fact that he's augmented in the first place.

 

 

Does the Inquisitor's drunken aunt (that you never get to meet and has no effect on the game whatsoever) change how other character's react to your character? How about the tournament? Apart from that one off reference in the origin story how does it effect how the rest of the game plays out?

 

 

It's odd, because if we change the Inquisitor's drunken aunt to "blank slate protagonist", you get the exact same argument.

 

Of course, best case sc​enario involves the game giving the player at least some measure of choice in that background. Which coincidentally Dragon Age does.
 

 

You are trying to argue that visual changes that reflect the player's choices are meaningless yet useless and inconsequential tidbits that the player has no input in and are meaningless to the player are somehow vital to the roleplaying experience? Surely even you must realize how stupid that sounds? 

 

 

Role-playing typically involves playing an actual person. People have experiences. Unless you're suggesting that in your day to day life, in conversation, you spend more time talking about other peoples' appearances and never (even once) talk about your past experiences? Surely even you must realize how stupid that sounds?

 

Why is it absolutely vital that the player character gabs about their past? Not everyone is so eager to talk about their past at any given opportunity and some don't like to speak of it at all, one of the biggest flaws of Bioware's recent games is how they place far more significance on events in the past than events in the actual game, if the events in the characters past are so interesting then why not just base the game around them?

 

 

Again, if that's the case, then please follow through on the thought experiment. Show me, by example, how a person conducts their day to day life without referencing any of their decades of experience, ever. You're certainly eager to defend these sorts of role-playing concepts. Who knows? Maybe you can actually pull it off. But even if, by some miracle, you did, it would still represent an incredibly narrow range of role-playing options, to the point where the implementation simply isn't worth it.

 

That's what makes your argument here so non-sensical. Sure, not everyone is going to give you a heart-throb story about how their father hated them and they can't ever function again. That's potentially feasible. Unfortunately, your argument takes that premise and goes off the deep end, to the point where a character may as well have been born the day the adventure started.

 

That would be the key advantage of the Inquisitor's Great Aunt story. The story itself isn't particularly great. Of course, in a best case scenario, the game would let you see what the dialogue was before you chose it. What's important is, at the player's behest, to be able to reference that background as a relevant experience, if the player wants. Or a better example, Josephine asking the player what he spent his youth doing. But according to you, those and the Origins are meaningless experiences to the player, but (somehow) a non-existent background matters more in that regard.  
 

 

While a backstory and past events can be useful in explaining the motivations and demeanor of other characters in the universe when it comes to the main character who's motivations and demeanor should be the player's to decide it is best to leave the backstory blank for the player to fill in the gaps, sure it will never get mentioned in the game but that is one of the concessions that must be made, it is still a far better alternative than forcing a pre-defined backstory on the player.

 

 

If that's the case, it's certainly not supported by the reactivity argument, which indicates pretty well why the blanked slate protagonist's lack of reactivity is a problem.

[Ahglock]

Role-playing typically involves playing an actual person. People have experiences. Unless you're suggesting that in your day to day life, in conversation, you spend more time talking about other peoples' appearances and never (even once) talk about your past experiences? Surely even you must realize how stupid that sounds?

I don't know. I'm pretty damn shallow. Getting past something as superficial as appearance is a stretch for me.

You sound kind of judgy.

[Il Divo]

I don't know. I'm pretty damn shallow. Getting past something as superficial as appearance is a stretch for me.

You sound kind of judgy.

 

Always judgy!

But being clear here, "past experiences" doesn't just mean giving long, in-depth narratives about your life. Past experiences can be something as simple as "I had cereal for breakfast yesterday". People commenting on appearance is all well and good. But in terms of its relevance to carrying a coherent conversation? I'm gonna take a shot here and say that we can get by quite a bit without talking about our appearances. Probably much more than we can without referencing in any capacity 20+ years of life.

 

​
 

[Ahglock]

Always judgy!
But being clear here, "past experiences" doesn't just mean giving long, in-depth narratives about your life. Past experiences can be something as simple as "I had cereal for breakfast yesterday". People commenting on appearance is all well and good. But in terms of its relevance to carrying a coherent conversation? I'm gonna take a shot here and say that we can get by quite a bit without talking about our appearances. Probably much more than we can without referencing in any capacity 20+ years of life.

​

Woah woah did I ask for a life story. First it's cereal for breakfast then it's I had a good day. Where does the insanity stop.

I'll keep it at hot or not thank you. And dragon tattoo, totally not.

[Il Divo]

You hurt me, Aghlock. The only think I can do to get back at you is misspell your name.

[Queen Skadi]

It would reflect those "decisions" in the most non-sensical manner possible.

 

How is it nonsensical to show certain augmentations having an effect on the character's appearance? If you chop off your hand and replace it with a hook I am pretty sure people are going to notice, it is like saying it is nonsensical for a scope to be visible on a weapon that you add a scope attachment to. It would be more nonsensical for them not to have an effect on the person's appearance.

 

Role-playing typically involves playing an actual person. People have experiences. Unless you're suggesting that in your day to day life, in conversation, you spend more time talking about other peoples' appearances and never (even once) talk about your past experiences? Surely even you must realize how stupid that sounds?

 

People comment on each other's appearances all the time, like "Hay girfriend, did you get a haircut?" or "Oh that dress is absolutely stunning, where did you get it" and even "Oh hi Jim been working out? You seem to have lost a few pounds!", not sure what world you live in.

 

Not being able to reference a character by how they look is a concession that must be made to allow variable appearances just as not being able to reference a character's backstory to the minute details is a concession that games must make in order to allow the player more freedom in defining their own backstory.

 

Again, if that's the case, then please follow through on the thought experiment. Show me, by example, how a person conducts their day to day life without referencing any of their decades of experience, ever. You're certainly eager to defend these sorts of role-playing concepts. Who knows? Maybe you can actually pull it off. But even if, by some miracle, you did, it would still represent an incredibly narrow range of role-playing options, to the point where the implementation simply isn't worth it.

 

No you are getting mixed up, saddling the player with a pre-defined backstory only allows for a very narrow to non-existent range of roleplaying options, allowing the player more freedom to craft their own backstory by giving them far vaguer options when it comes to talking about their backstory allows for a wider range of roleplaying options, see the difference?

 

That's what makes your argument here so non-sensical. Sure, not everyone is going to give you a heart-throb story about how their father hated them and they can't ever function again. That's potentially feasible. Unfortunately, your argument takes that premise and goes off the deep end, to the point where a character may as well have been born the day the adventure started.

 

That is because the character is essentially born the day the adventure starts, the character has no conscience until after the game begins and you take control, they have no life before that point, sure a developer can give them a backstory to seem like they had life before that point but then so can the player.

 

That would be the key advantage of the Inquisitor's Great Aunt story. The story itself isn't particularly great. Of course, in a best case scenario, the game would let you see what the dialogue was before you chose it. What's important is, at the player's behest, to be able to reference that background as a relevant experience, if the player wants. Or a better example, Josephine asking the player what he spent his youth doing. But according to you, those and the Origins are meaningless experiences to the player, but (somehow) a non-existent background matters more in that regard.

 

In the context of the game the non-existent background does not matter at all, however if you allow the player to headcanon their own backstory it will have relevance to the player when it comes to defining their own character's motivations and demeanor. Unless the background of the character is vital to the plot (which the backgrounds in Bioware games most certainly arent) it is best to leave the backstory as vague as possible.

 

The story about the great aunt serves no purpose in the game other than to remind the player that the character they are playing is not their own, the story has no relevance to the player as they would not have known about the aunt until after their character spoke of it so it is not a background experience they are referencing but rather a story they are watching somebody else's character tell, it has no relevance to the plot as this aunt does not influence events in a meaningful way or even show up during the game at all, it has no relevance to anything to the point one has to wonder why it is even brought up at all?

[Queen Skadi]

But being clear here, "past experiences" doesn't just mean giving long, in-depth narratives about your life. Past experiences can be something as simple as "I had cereal for breakfast yesterday".

 

If the cereal event is something that happens in game and the player is actually able to experience it then I don't see why a character should not be able to reference it at a later point in game, the problem is not referencing past events in a character's life but referencing past events that have no relevance to the player, it would be like asking the player how their character feels about the Mage/Templar war as that is something the player is actually able to experience and learn about in game and form an opinion on. The whole aunt thing is something that is never experienced and thus has no relevance to the player.

[Ahglock]

You hurt me, Aghlock. The only think I can do to get back at you is misspell your name.

That's O G Lok.

[KaiserShep]

I'm fine either way...

 

I love CC and it DOES make me feel more connected to my character. But if all I get for CC is this doormat cipher of an inquisitor again, then I'm all for an interesting set protagonist.

 

Of course, even without the plethora of options in the CC, the options for the Inquisitor's persona would have been exactly the same. In the end, the only complication the CC might introduce is issues with animation, clipping and the like, something I hope is reasonably dealt with in Andromeda…maker willing. 

[SilentK]

As others have said, there's no going back now. Most of us love character customization far too much to give it up. It has to keep improving, not vanish.

That said ... I feel every bit as attached to my Jade Empire character as I do the ones I designed myself. 

 

It seems that being given even a little choice in how we customize our characters is far better than none at all. I imagine that many BioWare fans, especially girls, haven't bought and don't intend to buy The Witcher 3, despite its glowing reviews, simply because it forces you to play as a gruff male protagonist. 

 

Jupp. I am one of them.

 

I have tried multiple times but I just prefer to play a female character and now I am lucky enough that there are games out there that let me do so. Lots of stuff in RL now so I don't have as much gamingtime as I like but now I am doing a replay of DA:I with all the DLC. After that I will look at the new stuff for SWTOR, will be fun to see the expansion. If the team who made Witcher had decided to do as BioWare and make the game playable with two characters, one male and one female it would have been fun to try it. They decided to only focus only on the male, which is a-ok, not every game out there has to be done for me. But I am very happy that BioWare believes that it is important enough to include both male and female leads.

[Eternal Dust]

Or they could give us less ugly presets to work with. The best of both worlds.