322 réponses à ce sujet

[Cyberstrike nTo]

Like Darkstar said, the player would have originally been able to walk around the Conclave and talk to attendees pre-Breach. It was cut because they felt it dragged the pacing down. 

 

Personally, I don't have a problem role-playing my Inquisitors even with the more explosive opening. I find it incredibly easy to headcanon a backstory for all my characters, explaining how they grew up and why they ended up at the conclave.

 

There is also dialogue that allows the player to fill in the backstory of Inquisitor if you talk to Cassandra (with basic background detail like where Inquisitor is from, would go back there, how home was, and religious beliefs)  and Josephine, (explaining more detail the human Inquisitor's relationship with their family, the Eleven Inquisitor's ties to their clan, the Dwarf Inquisitor's criminal record, and the Qunari Inquisitor's mercenary record) in Haven after the prologue there also War Tables operations that expanded it. Granted it is all dialogue and text but I feel like it allowed me to create a more personal and complex character that the Origins in DA:O just couldn't because the Origins were allowing to understand the world I was entering.

 

Also after all the playthroughs the Origins in DA:O did get repetitive and even boring after a while and after Ostergar, none of the origins don't really matter out side of a few dialogue references and a few side quests which is pretty much the same thing in DA:I, so I don't think was one version was vastly superior over the other both were good but if different ways I got to understand Thedas and it's history and politics in DA:O but I got to understand the Inquisitor in DA:I. Also by keeping who caused the Breach a mystery and how the PC got the Anchor allowed for a grand entrance for the Elder One and I was generally shocked by that reveal on the first playthrough.

 

I will say that I feel the City Elf origin story was IMHO the best in DA:O because if you play as a female it's a break out from the castle and get revenge story, whereas if you play as a male it's a break-in and rescue the girl story and each gender had a different POV on the City Elves. While all the Origins could have used more of that but it would have a massive drain on resources and that the other Origins as presented in the finished game didn't need it outside of minor dialogue changes.    

[Taki17]

Isn't Hawke suppose to be that? An average joe, I mean, who just happened to be there. That's like who Hawke is.

Well, most of the protagonists in DA games just ended up in the middle of thing because of certain consequences. In DAO, the Warden becomes a Warden because Duncan saves their lives (except the human noble, who was chosen by Duncan specifically in secret), Hawke flees the Blight and has to involve himself in politics to keep his family safe, get money and politics becomes their duty when they become nobles, and the Inquisitor just happens to be the one who stumbles upon Corypheus and picks up the orb.

 

On the contrary, Mass Effect, Jade Empire and KotOR embrace this chosen one, special-kind of people thingy as part of their core narrative, where the protagonists were meant to do great things from the beginning, and there are lot of factors and people who actively push this agenda.

[GoldenGail3]

Well, most of the protagonists in DA games just ended up in the middle of thing because of certain consequences. In DAO, the Warden becomes a Warden because Duncan saves their lives (except the human noble, who was chosen by Duncan specifically in secret), Hawke flees the Blight and has to involve himself in politics to keep his family safe, get money and politics becomes their duty when they become nobles, and the Inquisitor just happens to be the one who stumbles upon Corypheus and picks up the orb.
 
On the contrary, Mass Effect, Jade Empire and KotOR embrace this chosen one, special-kind of people thingy as part of their core narrative, where the protagonists were meant to do great things from the beginning, and there are lot of factors and people who actively push this agenda.

So I was right, pretty much that Hawke was a Normal guy/gal that just happened to be there? (I personally don't really like Hawke, I wasn't really playing through the eyes of someone who could do shite about Kirkwall.. )

[Wulfram]

The Inquisitor is very good at killing stuff for an Average Joe. Even without using the mark.

[Chiramu]

Inquisition could've used more story in general, but I don't think origin stories would be the story it needs.

[Heimdall]

I would have preferred an opening that allowed us to define the character pre-crisis. Dropping into the action can work, but DAI did it very badly with almost no context.

[vbibbi]

I'll try to rephrase what I've said then. The difference is that the characters you're discussing don't actually exist, even in-universe, for all intents and purposes. They don't have a personality that you react to, your reaction creates their personality. It's sort of like how some people use the term "playersexual", except in this case, instead of an NPC having whatever orientation makes them available to your PC, the NPC's entire personality aligns to your description, in essence.
 
In a real life conversation, I could describe my relationship to my parents to a stranger and it might sound like one of Trevelyan's options, but the point is that I know my parents, they are real characters in my story. I'm reacting/giving my opinion of them, not creating their personalities. In-game, since we've never had so much as a letter to actually judge Trevelyan's parents, whatever our answer is isn't just our character's PoV, it becomes truth. If we got to meet Lydia, we could formulate a PoV of her that may or may not conflict with Vivienne's. As it is, you might as well just pick at random because we have no context to make a judgement.
 
Am I making any more sense? It feels totally cheap and unreal to me when I choose one of these answers, because I'm basically guessing. Because I know that I'm choosing these people's personalities instead of reacting to meeting them, it feels invalid.
 
"What do you think of this person you have no information about?" Well how should I know?!

 

Yeah, if someone wants to fill in their PC's entire background, having companions even mention any specific people from the PC's past could disrupt the background the player has already established by the start of the game. At least by starting a game within an origin, we have a range of reactions we can provide to the existing characters rather than adjust our headcanon as we learn new information about our background.

And e player is still limited by the backgrounds provided by the game. We can't be an Orlesian noble who was looking for new trade with the Divine or a city elf servant. We're still limited in our character to what Bioware allows.

 

Origins spent several hours telling an actually interesting story about my characters background, and introduced a ton of interesting characters for me to care about. Then, it suddenly took all of those away, and expected me to care about a much less interesting "save the world from the demon army" plot, whilst giving me absolutely no motivation to care about it, and absolutely no reason for my character to actually stick around and deal with it. 

 

How is that different from us being confronted by Leliana and Cassandra and many side characters mourning Justinia's death, when we've never met her? Or the theoretical family/friends who came with us to the Conclave? At least in DAO we will reencounter the people from our origin and can react to the reunion.

And if you felt a connection to the people who were taken away, why wouldn't you want to save them from the oncoming Blight? Just because they're no longer on screen, we know they're still on the path of the Blight. Sure we could abandon Alistair and go home, but we know that it wouldn't help anything and we're abandoning the best chance of saving Ferelden.

 

If a person is new to the series, maybe they should start with the first game rather than jumping in after the first several hundred hours and expecting things to make sense...

But it sounds like you didn't like the DAO origins. So even someone playing DAI after the first games, without playing an origin we would have lost that personal perspective on the everyday people of Thedas.

[Andreas Amell]

Topic title, basically

 

I just feel like it's quite difficult to roleplay in this game because we are litterally dropped into the center of things, with no real character establishment or anything like that

 

Like, for example, my Inquisitor is a Tal-Vashot and in the codex it's stated that he was hired to keep watch on the Conclave, it would have been awesome to actually get to know the emrcenary band, maybe see the bonds, establish how my character feels about his work and his mercenary-companions and then BOOM, the life he knew was over and it's Corypheus' fault, it would have made the rivalry between Cory and The Inquisitor feel a lot more personal.

 

Instead there is never even the chance to talk about the guys he probably knew back at the Conclave whom died because of the explotion.  At one time, i actually thought the character was supposed to have total amnesia since he felt so estranged to hsi life Pre-Conclave. Which would have been quite awesome if only during Here Lies the Abyss we could actually choose how s/he behaved in regards to Cory and Justinia, instead of just going the generic hero route (which, luckily, fit my character just fine but doesn't really fit ALL kinds of characters)

I spent a lot of time reviewing my Dragon Keep, so I didn't feel out of touch. The Inquisitor is the hero who happened to be at the right place at the right time and we choose how the hero will step up. It would have been nice after we get to Skyhold to backtrack on prior associations, but we have a fortress and soldiers to prepare.

[In Exile]

Well, most of the protagonists in DA games just ended up in the middle of thing because of certain consequences. In DAO, the Warden becomes a Warden because Duncan saves their lives (except the human noble, who was chosen by Duncan specifically in secret), Hawke flees the Blight and has to involve himself in politics to keep his family safe, get money and politics becomes their duty when they become nobles, and the Inquisitor just happens to be the one who stumbles upon Corypheus and picks up the orb.

 

On the contrary, Mass Effect, Jade Empire and KotOR embrace this chosen one, special-kind of people thingy as part of their core narrative, where the protagonists were meant to do great things from the beginning, and there are lot of factors and people who actively push this agenda.

 

All the characters are "chosen" by Duncan. He's there because he's sniffing around for recruits among his old contacts. He knows Irving, and is there to pick a promising mage. Knew the CE's mother, and was angling to get her, but got her kid instead. Same with the HN, and Dalish. It's really the dwarves who are a bit more "by total and random chance". 

[Giantdeathrobot]

Not full-on Origins, but a prologue where you walk around the Conclave, get to know a few characters, and establish the PC's background and reason to be here would have helped, yes. There wasn't enough context to what was going on.

[Andreas Amell]

Maybe Bioware should create a new game where you can choose to be on one side or the other, instead of playing one side that's either paragon or renegade.

[Abyss108]

 
How is that different from us being confronted by Leliana and Cassandra and many side characters mourning Justinia's death, when we've never met her? Or the theoretical family/friends who came with us to the Conclave? At least in DAO we will reencounter the people from our origin and can react to the reunion.

And if you felt a connection to the people who were taken away, why wouldn't you want to save them from the oncoming Blight? Just because they're no longer on screen, we know they're still on the path of the Blight. Sure we could abandon Alistair and go home, but we know that it wouldn't help anything and we're abandoning the best chance of saving Ferelden.

 
But it sounds like you didn't like the DAO origins. So even someone playing DAI after the first games, without playing an origin we would have lost that personal perspective on the everyday people of Thedas.

 

What are you talking about? We never met Justinia, so other characters who did meet her aren't supposed to care about her and mention her? How is other characters caring about someone they knew a problem? The game never acts like you should care about Justinia personally. You didn't take family and friends to the conclave. I think there may have been an oversight for the human who may have had someone there if they were a mage, but the other races don't.(Elf certainly doesn't have anyone there). This isn't supposed to be about the deaths of anyone you know. You aren't supposed to care about those people any more than you do about any other group of random strangers that die offscreen in order to make the plot happen. You have a much more urgent issue to care about with the mark appearing on your hand and trying to kill you, the Chantry denouncing you and probably wanting to kill you, and Cory wanting to kill you.

 

I didn't want to save anyone from the Blight, because I played a mage. The Origin featured my friend betraying me and running off, and everyone else was, in the best case, a dick who had imprisoned me my entire life. No-one that would motivate me to fight Darkspawn and risk my life. There was nothing to make the fight against the Darkspawn personal. I don't have any urge to go off and join a war effort just because the war is there. Otherwise every single person in Ferelden has exactly the same amount of motivation to become the hero of Ferelden, and a lot of those people would have a lot more experience in combat then my character. 

 

The game did everything to just make want to bugger off and leave Ferelden to sort itself out. And the game let me play that character until Duncan died, at which point it suddenly decided my character who had been very vocal and not wanting to be a Warden, was completely into the warden thing. Why allow me to play a character with a certain trait, then take that away, so my characterisation is completely inconsistent? It's like if halfway through Inquisition, the game suddenly decided you were pro-Andraste and believed you were a chosen one, even if you picked all the options that said you don't believe in the Maker for the first half of the game.

 

I did like Origins a lot. It's in my top 10 favourite games (and I have played a lot of games), probably in my top 5. That doesn't mean I think it did everything well and can't criticise the bits it did badly. I'm not sure why you're saying even someone who played Origins lost the personal connection in Inquisition, since I played Origins and had no problem having a connection to anything in Inquisition. It did a much better job of making me care, and also of making me care because of my "origin" - as a Dalish Elf, I had a completely different experience as a character than I would have playing a human. Inquisition did a much better job at getting me involved than Origins ever did.

[BatarianBob]

Don't know about an origin necessarily, but as someone who skipped 2 on account of the horrible word of mouth, a slightly slower intro, with a little exposition might have been nice. Maybe just a little cutscene and voiceover about how the mages and templars have been fighting each other for however long, and last best hope for peace, etc.

 

I get that they want to grab your attention quickly, but a big green explosion, no idea what blew up, why it blew up, or why I should care, came closer to doing the opposite for me.

[PsychoBlonde]

Topic title, basically

 

I just feel like it's quite difficult to roleplay in this game because we are litterally dropped into the center of things, with no real character establishment or anything like that

 

Having to listen to Cassandra's ham-handed infodump at the beginning of the game actually makes it difficult for me to get into a replay.  It's SO bad.  I'm tempted to make a video just to list all the ways in which its dreadful.

 

Past that point they actually do a decent job of introducing new characters as they appear, but the central situation gets no introduction.  You don't even MEET the character everyone is grieving about until halfway through the game!

 

This has become so common in Bioware games that I'm actually starting to believe that they just have no conception of how to DO characterization outside of a huge long complex multi-option dialog-wheel conversation (which, admittedly, on numerous playthroughs can get old) that their only other option is to just . . . not do an intro.

 

I don't know that Origins-style intros would be specifically the way to go, but something as significant as the Conclave should actually appear on screen.  This isn't Waiting for Godot.  You don't hear about Batman's parents dying halfway through the movie by two unrelated characters talking about it in passing.  Spiderman doesn't just mention Uncle Ben as an aside.  Critical influences NEED. TO. HAVE. SCREEN. TIME.

[Addictress]

Don't know about an origin necessarily, but as someone who skipped 2 on account of the horrible word of mouth, a slightly slower intro, with a little exposition might have been nice. Maybe just a little cutscene and voiceover about how the mages and templars have been fighting each other for however long, and last best hope for peace, etc.

I get that they want to grab your attention quickly, but a big green explosion, no idea what blew up, why it blew up, or why I should care, came closer to doing the opposite for me.

Oooohhhhhhh *slaps you with tentacles*

DA2 is my favorite. You have to play it!!!! It's a niche game. Not everyone gets it. You might have the gene mutation for getting it, though. I suggest you try.

[PsychoBlonde]

Or to put it another way, if the first thing that happens at the first moment when I finally get control of my character and can do something after the opening cutscenes is this:

 

Codex Entry: Justinia IV added

Codex Entry: Trevalyan, The Free Marcher added

Codex Entry: Cassandra added

Codex Entry: The Conclave added

Codex Entry: Leliana added

 

YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG

 

Cinematic opening cut scene vomits text everywhere wtf

[PsychoBlonde]

AND THEY GAVE THE PC AMNESIA ZOMG FRIGGIN AMNESIA *TWITCH* 

 

okay okay I am calm I am calm breathe in jesus breathe out satan breathe in jesus breathe out satan

 

Don't get me wrong, I actually think Inquisition is the best game in the series so far.  I really enjoyed it.  A lot.  Lots of good stuff in there.  The intro, however, makes me foam at the mouth just a bit.

[BansheeOwnage]

Don't know about an origin necessarily, but as someone who skipped 2 on account of the horrible word of mouth, a slightly slower intro, with a little exposition might have been nice. Maybe just a little cutscene and voiceover about how the mages and templars have been fighting each other for however long, and last best hope for peace, etc.

 

I get that they want to grab your attention quickly, but a big green explosion, no idea what blew up, why it blew up, or why I should care, came closer to doing the opposite for me.

What makes it funnier but also bad for storytelling is that since the green 'splosion happens right before character creation, by the time myself and a lot of other people have finally made a character to their liking, they kind of forget that the explosion happened at all

[PsychoBlonde]

What makes it funnier but also bad for storytelling is that since the green 'splosion happens right before character creation, by the time myself and a lot of other people have finally made a character to their liking, they kind of forget that the explosion happened at all

 

Yes.  Also they made us make our character in green lighting that washes out red and orange tints.  Still mad about that one, too.  SO MANY CLOWNFACES SO BRUTALLY DELETED.

This probably also contributes to my problem with Cassandra at the beginning since I've heard her do that spiel probably 50 times.

[BansheeOwnage]

Yes.  Also they made us make our character in green lighting that washes out red and orange tints.  Still mad about that one, too.  SO MANY CLOWNFACES SO BRUTALLY DELETED.

This probably also contributes to my problem with Cassandra at the beginning since I've heard her do that spiel probably 50 times.

Yeah, I really hope they learned their lesson from that. Hawke's lighting was similarly bad. Hopefully in the next one we can switch between a few preset lighting levels (sunny day, moonlight, etc.) and also view our character from more angles. At least let us use the Y axis.

[AlanC9]

Past that point they actually do a decent job of introducing new characters as they appear, but the central situation gets no introduction.  You don't even MEET the character everyone is grieving about until halfway through the game!

I gotta go with Abyss108 here. Why is it a problem that our PCs didn't really meet Justinia, exactly? She wasn't important to any of my Inquisitors so far except for the HN... and even then, she was only important in the abstract.
 

[Qis]

Absolutely not. Origins are a waste of resources. Not only do they have absolutely no connection to any other part of the game if done like DAO, but they create conflicts and narratives that the game then refuses to follow up on and actively ignores.

 

I don't agree, Origin do connect the character story background with the event afterwards in one way or another, it is not a waste of resource. Player character Origin justifying why the character being at Ostagar and join the Grey Warden, from there the story goes on why the player character must going through the challenges and survive, it makes player choice meaningful.

 

Origin also introduce the player into the universe of DA based on race, each races have different view about the world not to mention different culture and religion, Origin introduce all that in unique way. The players are the one they choose to be in that world, a Human, an Elf, a Mage or a Dwarf. Different Origin making different perspective about things and different mood.

 

So it is not a waste of resources, and it also offer replayability, you can re-play as different race and try to understand the world from different perspective and mood.

[AutumnWitch]

I agree 100%. Would have made the game so much better because we would have cared more for our Inquisitor.

 

To this day when I play DO, the opening sequence (for me esp the mage) just drags me into the world instantly. And because its more of a slow pace I can get to know things and feel the over all atmosphere of the world on a much more personal level. I miss that so much! Even in DA2 the "Destruction of Lothering" beginning quest  sets up the mood and some character points,.

 

As much as I love DAI (and I love it a lot) making interesting, in depth origins for the characters would have made it so much freaking better.

[Fiskrens]

No, for two reasons. If the background plays no vital part in the rest of the game, it just becomes a boring filler (as in DAO). If on the other hand there were lots of parts later on that were character-specific, these would only take focus from of the main story (and probably shorten it as well, due to finite amount of developing resources). And I'd hate to be forced to start over just to experience large parts of the game; TW2 proved that for me.

[Lezio]

No, for two reasons. If the background plays no vital part in the rest of the game, it just becomes a boring filler (as in DAO). If on the other hand there were lots of parts later on that were character-specific, these would only take focus from of the main story (and probably shorten it as well, due to finite amount of developing resources). And I'd hate to be forced to start over just to experience large parts of the game; TW2 proved that for me.

 

I never could see the Origins as "boring filler" since they basically establish how i'm gonna play the whole game. I just wouldn't have felt as connected to My Wardens if i was just dropped in Ostagar with no backstory and no nothing and i had to read some codex to make sense of things and make the rest up as i went