223 réponses à ce sujet

[Navoletti]

but in this case not is imposible,i think is posible they need work hard yeah but game with more work and dedication is more better.

 

my situation of life is very hard...example my solution is suicide but i think in fight now with a posible surgery for my face...is hard live each time of you life in you house..and each time that need exit look the people jokes,humillations,scary or attitude hostile only for my aspect..the easy way is die but i think in fight...

 

they need use this attitude with the game.

[Ariella]

but in this case not is imposible,i think is posible they need work hard yeah but game with more work and dedication is more better.

More dedication? More dedication? I'm fighting the urge to use another quote. One about assumptions.

Do you even have any comprehension about how difficult programming is? One line out of place and it can break the entire program.

Everything that goes into these games is a lot of work and a lot of detail, but you don't seem to get that. These games consume two to three years of their lives.

And your comparison to suicide is just tactless.

[Andraste_Reborn]

Could BioWare bring the Warden back? Yes. Is it likely that they will? Nope. It would use up a lot of rescources that they could put into other parts of the game, and probably end up annoying a lot of people, so they've decided not to do it.

 

They've declared that the Warden's story is done. I think it's best that we take them at their word. They've made their decison.

[GoldenGail3]

Another one of these threads? No, the Warden isn't coming back. And I'm fine with this.

"Deal.With.It" - Cassandra

[berelinde]

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's very little return for a crap load of time and effort and money that can be better spent elsewhere.

As for alternating voices, that's been explained several times. Many people have an idea of what the HoF sounds like in their own head. No voice artist they could get would satisfy people. Hell, people complained that Hawke didn't sound like "theirs" and it was the SAME VA.

This isn't about politics, this is about the reality of making video games.

You're right, of course. It is possible, in technical terms. You could get a writer to slap something together and hire some actors with sexy voices, but that wouldn't make it a wise expenditure of precious resources. It would still be a story that has already been told about characters who, if they're still alive at all, have long outlived their relevance.

 

And even if they did bring the HoF back, what would they do about companions? Love interests? Ye gods, what a mess! There has been at least one opportunity to kill each of them off since then, so it would get messy fast. Again, technically possible, but it would be the opposite of rewarding. It would be throwing good money after bad. But if you were going to go with the HoF, you'd have to do it because otherwise, people would rage.

 

And people would rage if they got the VA wrong. They would rage if the HoF was not engaged in suitably heroic activities between the end of DAO and their next appearance. In short, it would be a disaster.

 

I have a feeling that we are actually going to see the HoF again, for those with a living HoF. We're going to go through that whole character creation process like we had to do for Hawke... and then we're going to see them turn toward the camera, smile ruefully, blow their lover a kiss, and jump into a lava pit a la Cairidin. People will then ask for the HoF's lava-encrusted corpse to be installed amid great ceremony at Weisshaupt. Because some folks are that hung up on the Warden.

[AlanC9]

but in this case not is imposible,i think is posible they need work hard yeah but game with more work and dedication is more better.

The question isn't whether it could be done, the question is whether it would be worth doing. When someone says this is impossible, the meaning is that it's impossible that EA would be stupid enough to let Bio do this, even if Bio were stupid enough to want to do it
 

my situation of life is very hard...example my solution is suicide but i think in fight now with a posible surgery for my face...is hard live each time of you life in you house..and each time that need exit look the people jokes,humillations,scary or attitude hostile only for my aspect..the easy way is die but i think in fight...
 
they need use this attitude with the game.

This has nothing to do with the topic. You should stop bringing it up.

[BSpud]

nothing is imposible..

 

[Nixou]

The Orlesian Warden Commander is a completely different character with a completely different history than the Hero of Ferelden. This should be obvious. It should also be obvious that the two characters would be reacted to differently because one fought the archdemon and one didn't.

 

 

Actually, it would be possible to create a working framework for the Warden Commander's dialog: create a central script for all conversations which pertain to their job as Commander of the Grey and apply it to both character, then create two distinct secondary scripts for the conversations that pertain to their past: one for the Orlesian commander one for the HoF.

 

Whether it's possible or not never was really in doubt: the question real question being whether the time, effort (the scripts and all their possible permutations have to be written then coded in the game) and resources (hiring one or several more voice actors) were worth it.

 

And so far, the writers' answer to That question has clearly been No.

 

***

 

The Warden was boring, please don't bring the Warden back. Lets move on to new and more interesting stories.

 

 

Yes s/he was.

The problem is that the Warden was a boring Power Fantasy, and a fairly large portion of Bioware's audience play their game for the power fantasy: as a result the Warden is and likely will remain their favorite protagonist as the franchise moves forward.

 

***

 

Do you know what will happen if they do bring the Hero of Ferelden back? We will not be playing as them. Assuming that we don't just read about their death as a Codex entry, we will be watching them die in a cinematic dialogue. Is that really what you want?

 

 

YES! 

[Ariella]

Actually, it would be possible to create a working framework for the Warden Commander's dialog: create a central script for all conversations which pertain to their job as Commander of the Grey and apply it to both character, then create two distinct secondary scripts for the conversations that pertain to their past: one for the Orlesian commander one for the HoF.
 
Whether it's possible or not never was really in doubt: the question real question being whether the time, effort (the scripts and all their possible permutations have to be written then coded in the game) and resources (hiring one or several more voice actors) were worth it.

I agree with you. I was just trying to point out how much damned work it would be.

I liked my Warden, but I'd push her into a vat of acid myself it would stop these inane posts.

Or maybe not a vat of acid, considering what happened last time someone did that. A volcano perhaps?

But the only way I can see the Warden showing up again is in a remaster of DAO. And that doesn't seem any more likely than new material.

[Arvaarad]

I agree with you. I was just trying to point out how much damned work it would be.

I liked my Warden, but I'd push her into a vat of acid myself it would stop these inane posts.

Possibly a better solution: we should teach programming in schools, alongside language, science, and history. It's easy for people to say "X is easy" (or even "Y must be harder than X") when they genuinely don't know what goes into software.

From an intuitive perspective, I can see how people might think that branching stories are easy. After all, if I play pretend with someone else, I only have to detail the path they actually pick. I don't have to fully spec out every single permutation of every single branch. Having a vague idea is good enough.

Also, it's hard to grasp how every additional feature multiplies work (instead of adding work) unless I've actually had to maintain 10k-100k lines of code. And 10k-100k is a tiny project, by the way. In that range, I'm probably a music streaming client or a basic chat app, not a game. Something that's easy to add to a small project becomes much, much harder to add to a large project.

I've used this analogy before, but imagine the entire ASoIaF series being written over a period of 2-4 years, by a team of a dozen or more people, and they have to keep it self-consistent and relatively bug-free. Except code is different than words, because each line of code can fundamentally change the behavior of every other line of code. So while I'm trying to make a dragon fly over in this chapter, my teammate Alice has made a change to horses in a totally different chapter of a completely different book that makes animals move differently. Every time you add a new chapter, it could interact with every previous chapter in every book. Of course, I can organize my code to minimize the impact of different "books" on each other, but that organization breaks down the more people are working on the project and the sooner the deadline looms. Talk to any non-trivially sized project team, and I guarantee that the vast majority of people are fixing bugs or doing maintenance. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of a software team can work on new features, and that percentage gets smaller as the software gets larger.

[berelinde]

@Arvaarad: It would be great if people did have a better grasp of the logistics of their proposals, but even a vague understanding of the logistics of branching dialogue would help. If you don't repeat branches, the amount of writing increases exponentially with the number of paths. Thinking of it as a "family tree" structure, you're looking at 15 lines of dialogue required for a three-exchange dialogue with two choices. Increasing the number of response options to three increases the number of lines of dialogue to 40!

[Ariella]

Possibly a better solution: we should teach programming in schools, alongside language, science, and history. It's easy for people to say "X is easy" (or even "Y must be harder than X") when they genuinely don't know what goes into software.

From an intuitive perspective, I can see how people might think that branching stories are easy. After all, if I play pretend with someone else, I only have to detail the path they actually pick. I don't have to fully spec out every single permutation of every single branch. Having a vague idea is good enough.

Agreed. It really is hard to conceptualize, even with a vague idea sometimes.

Ah, for the old days of Basic and the Choose Your Own Adventure type books I used to get which had simple programs that advanced the story.
 

Also, it's hard to grasp how every additional feature multiplies work (instead of adding work) unless I've actually had to maintain 10k-100k lines of code. And 10k-100k is a tiny project, by the way. In that range, I'm probably a music streaming client or a basic chat app, not a game. Something that's easy to add to a small project becomes much, much harder to add to a large project.

I've used this analogy before, but imagine the entire ASoIaF series being written over a period of 2-4 years, by a team of a dozen or more people, and they have to keep it self-consistent and relatively bug-free. Except code is different than words, because each line of code can fundamentally change the behavior of every other line of code. So while I'm trying to make a dragon fly over in this chapter, my teammate Alice has made a change to horses in a totally different chapter of a completely different book that makes animals move differently. Every time you add a new chapter, it could interact with every previous chapter in every book. Of course, I can organize my code to minimize the impact of different "books" on each other, but that organization breaks down the more people are working on the project and the sooner the deadline looms. Talk to any non-trivially sized project team, and I guarantee that the vast majority of people are fixing bugs or doing maintenance. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of a software team can work on new features, and that percentage gets smaller as the software gets larger.

Again, agreed. It's a pretty good analogy.

I have a bit better than vague idea only because my husband was a com sci minor and we've talked about the subject on several occasions, especially back in the Aurora engine days when I REALLY wanted to create mods for NWN but had no clue about the language.

I'm a fan of West Wing (this is relevant I promise), and one episode makes mention of something being a Christmas tree bill. The idea behind it was you add one too many ornaments or, in the bill's case, amendments, and the thing will topple over. That's always been my impression of coding but taken to a degree most people can't understand without even a small reference.

Which, of course, goes back to your point about programming classes.

[Heimdall]

@Arvaarad: It would be great if people did have a better grasp of the logistics of their proposals, but even a vague understanding of the logistics of branching dialogue would help. If you don't repeat branches, the amount of writing increases exponentially with the number of paths. Thinking of it as a "family tree" structure, you're looking at 15 lines of dialogue required for a three-exchange dialogue with two choices. Increasing the number of response options to three increases the number of lines of dialogue to 40!

Ask any of them to write a branching story beyond a brisk outline of any kind and I would hope they could grasp just how much work it is to create alternate paths.  Heck, writing a linear path well is hard in itself.

 

As someone who took a few basic programming courses and writes fiction for fun, nothing drives me more crazy than people talking about what a great idea it would be to have the next DA have us choose between all previous protagonists for our character, or something similar.

[MisterJB]

Am I the only one reading his posts in the voice the City Wok man from South Park?

[Arvaarad]

Slight correction to my previous post. I mentioned a simple, non-video game project would be 10k-100k lines.

Welp. I just crunched the numbers on the project I'm on now, and it has over 400,000 lines of code. I'm not a game dev, so maybe throw an extra 0 or two on that for video games.

[Ariella]

Slight correction to my previous post. I mentioned a simple, non-video game project would be 10k-100k lines.

Welp. I just crunched the numbers on the project I'm on now, and it has over 400,000 lines of code. I'm not a game dev, so maybe throw an extra 0 or two on that for video games.

My head just exploded... Owww... Oww...

[GoldenGail3]

Actually, it would be possible to create a working framework for the Warden Commander's dialog: create a central script for all conversations which pertain to their job as Commander of the Grey and apply it to both character, then create two distinct secondary scripts for the conversations that pertain to their past: one for the Orlesian commander one for the HoF.
 
Whether it's possible or not never was really in doubt: the question real question being whether the time, effort (the scripts and all their possible permutations have to be written then coded in the game) and resources (hiring one or several more voice actors) were worth it.
 
And so far, the writers' answer to That question has clearly been No.
 
***
 

 
Yes s/he was.
The problem is that the Warden was a boring Power Fantasy, and a fairly large portion of Bioware's audience play their game for the power fantasy: as a result the Warden is and likely will remain their favorite protagonist as the franchise moves forward.
 
***
 

 
YES! 

NO TO ALL OF YOUR POST! The Warden shouldn't die. At all. I went through too much crap to watch my Warden die horribly. IF THE WARDEN DIED AS I WATCHED MY LI MOURN MY LOST, ID JUST BE DONE, BECUASE FOR ME ITD ALISTAIR AND THATS JUST TOO MUCH TO HANDLE! Plus the Warden can already be dead due to the lack of taking the DA. So I don't think so, people need to get over the fact that the Warden can be dead, though my Warden took the DA, so she's still alive and kicking. And if they killed the Warden, I'd totally 100% just make people's choices matter none at all. And this if people took the DA or used Alistair/Loghian as the sacrifice.

[Cobra's_back]

I know I don't want the Warden or Alistair back. If they bring them back, they will set them up for death. Let these two retire happily. Now Morrigan is a different story. There are still more to be seen from her story.

[Arvaarad]

My head just exploded... Owww... Oww...

Oh, it gets even better. The part I work on is just the frontend, which means it mostly just passes information from the server (the "backend").

The server-side java, where the actual logic happens, contains 2.9 million lines of code. Again, this is what I'd consider a small- to moderate-sized project. Videogames are much more complex than the stuff I work on.

[Ariella]

Oh, it gets even better. The part I work on is just the frontend, which means it mostly just passes information from the server (the "backend").

The server-side java, where the actual logic happens, contains 2.9 million lines of code. Again, this is what I'd consider a small- to moderate-sized project. Videogames are much more complex than the stuff I work on.

Owww.... Owww... Stop that! I thought my husband was bad when he brough his science stuff home and tried to explain it to me, but owww...

Seriously, that sounds like, ugh. I'm pretty good with words, but I can't even conceive of 2.9 million lines of TEXT let alone code which truly is a foreign language.

[Arvaarad]

Owww.... Owww... Stop that! I thought my husband was bad when he brough his science stuff home and tried to explain it to me, but owww...

Seriously, that sounds like, ugh. I'm pretty good with words, but I can't even conceive of 2.9 million lines of TEXT let alone code which truly is a foreign language.

If it helps with getting a sense of proportion, there are about 1.8 million words in the ASoIaF series thus far. So, if all the backend code was printed out, it would be a bit short of twice that length.

Or... er... well, a line of code is often longer than the average word, maybe 3x as long on average? So the code would actually be 6x as long as the novels.

And this is excluding the code in the frontend clients, the database code, and any configuration files.

And it was written in half the time George R. R. Martin has spent on the currently published books.

So it's roughly 12 GRRMs worth of text?

Text that does stuff.

Text that can modify the behavior of all the other text.




...I'm not helping, am I?

[Navoletti]

well see is posible créate the two storys in a game for the hero of ferelden or warden orlesian but bioware/EA decide créate a story mediocre and easy for have minor cost of production....the quality is very ignored in the last games of bioware....

 

cdprojekt have a nice progress in this but bioware have a big decline of quality.

 

story of DAI inquisition is boring compared with DAO.

[Ariella]

If it helps with getting a sense of proportion, there are about 1.8 million words in the ASoIaF series thus far. So, if all the backend code was printed out, it would be a bit short of twice that length.

Or... er... well, a line of code is often longer than the average word, maybe 3x as long on average? So the code would actually be 6x as long as the novels.

And this is excluding the code in the frontend clients, the database code, and any configuration files.

And it was written in half the time George R. R. Martin has spent on the currently published books.

So it's roughly 12 GRRMs worth of text?

Text that does stuff.

Text that can modify the behavior of all the other text.




...I'm not helping, am I?

 

No.... And I'm seriously trying to think of a way to thank you for that.

 

But I see you one GRR Martin and raise you one David Weber: one main line series of thirteen main line novels, two branching series that now have 3 books each. And no damned end in sight,

 

I'm not even going to try calculating. My brain hurts.

 

And this brings us back to the subject. Yuph branching stories can be done, but it hurts the head. And as I understand it Weber has to use Dragon now and dictate because he's got carpal tunnel bad.

[Abyss108]

well see is posible créate the two storys in a game for the hero of ferelden or warden orlesian but bioware/EA decide créate a story mediocre and easy for have minor cost of production....the quality is very ignored in the last games of bioware....

 

cdprojekt have a nice progress in this but bioware have a big decline of quality.

 

story of DAI inquisition is boring compared with DAO.

 

In your opinion. Inquisition was a much better story for me.

 

It was impossible for me to ever really care about my Warden, because I had no idea why she wanted to fight the blight. The game did a terrible job of giving me personal motivation for it. She had no personal stakes in the war, unlike my Inquisitor who had her own life on the line.

[berelinde]

well see is posible créate the two storys in a game for the hero of ferelden or warden orlesian but bioware/EA decide créate a story mediocre and easy for have minor cost of production....the quality is very ignored in the last games of bioware....

 

cdprojekt have a nice progress in this but bioware have a big decline of quality.

 

story of DAI inquisition is boring compared with DAO.

You know, Navoletti, you would enjoy DAI much more if you put it back in the box and played DAO again. If that's the game you want, that's the game you want. If you're bored playing the same story over and over... well, so are we. That's why we don't want to see the Warden again.