322 réponses à ce sujet

[FiveThreeTen]

Nightscrawl. By personal connection, you mean when you meet siblings/parents/mentors/crime associates in the Origins?

Because that worked for me. I could see how Cyrion or Daddy and Mommy Cousland could bother some people, especially if your PC looks doesn't match theirs but a workaround to this was already provided by Bioware with the Hawke family. On a different engine sure but it doesn't hurt to at least consider the option for future DA games.

 

I really dislike thinking along these lines, but I don't have much faith that Bioware will be able to deliver those kinds of character-oriented RP choices that you gave examples of, or if they do, to have those choices be any more significant than a variant response by some NPC. I certainly don't require dramatic sweeping arcs or plot differences based on player choice or origin, but it would be nice to have a specific quest or two related to that where the player can have sufficient RP input AND have those choice be acknowledged by the followers or other NPCs.

I certainly wouldn't complain about some specific quests latter.

But choices, even small, even not really acknowledged by NPCs really manage to make me more engaged in the game world and with the story. I think they already managed to do it in Origins, wasn't perfect but still satisfying for me.

I recently replayed the Brosca prologue, and even with those personal connections present, it's amazing how many options I had compared to Inquistion. I was able to act friendly or not towards Leske and give an opinion to Rica regarding her liaison with Belhen. Those options are meaningless in the grand scale of things but I think they remain relevant in terms of the player engagment.

 

I'm aware the dialogue system evolved (voiced PC an all), became more streamlined but they managed to pull off "something along those lines" in those dialogues you have with Josephine/Cassandra at the beginning of the game. So I don't think it's such a stretch to think they could implement those kind of dialogues in a playable prologue (maybe shorter than Origins, since there is a crowd that apparently get bored quickly if things aren't rushing and if there are "too much dialogues") (although I'm not super optimistic either on Bioware willingness to do this)

^Just to be clear I know that's not the problem you voiced with Origins but I think sim-ran reported they knew people abandonned DAO because of the pace at the beginning

 

But from what I understand, lots of people had problem with their PC characterization in Origins when they reached Ostagar. I don't really share those complaints but it's true you reach a sort of bottleneck when you assume the role of the Warden.

[vbibbi]

Well, from one point of view, it's really jarring that your character is learning to fight from scratch (even more so for the companions), with barely any starting abilities. Not that this is specific to DA:I. It's jarring especially if you're a mage or a qunari since you should already be trained and able, and it's conversely jarring to have a character with no combat training be so gifted in it so fast (if that's the case. It's not clear if all the backgrounds have combat training).

 

Yeah it's a common enough problem in games where an NPC supposedly already powerful is reduced to level 1 at the start of the game for game balance. Solas I could understand, as he's weak from his long sleep and is slowly regaining powers. But why wouldn't Cassandra at least be a few levels about level 1? And Varric, maybe he's rusty from being in retirement until Cassandra pulled him back in, but how did he forget all combat knowledge and skills from adventuring with Hawke for ~7 years?

 

^ Well yes, I prefer to have as little pre-defined as possible and your examples are swell. However, there are a lot of people in this very thread stating that one thing they liked about the DAO origins was that personal connection.

 

I guess I don't understand this. What FiveThreeTen posted as an example is exactly the kind of thing I'm wishing was included in DAI as the "origin." I do see it as the personal connection you don't seem too keen on. It establishes our character, provides us a few RP options on how the PC feels about their purpose at the Conclave and sets up their relationship to their background. I don't need the game to start in Ostwick or the Dalish clan or wherever, the origins could all start with our arrival at the Conclave. It's still going to provide the PC better context to the situation than "I just woke up in the Fade and don't remember anything about the Conclave."

[Fiskrens]

My fear is that if we would have had an origin starting at the conclave, this topic would still have thrived on the forums, but be along the lines "Why didn't we get an Ostwick origin? It wouldn't have been much to add..." There will always be those who'd like to experience "more", who would have liked to see the character's beginning, etc.

My point is not to disrespect those opinions, but I myself think that would have made a different game, at least the first half; I don't think it would have been possible to include that without revealing more about Coryphypants/Grey Wardens/fate of Justinia - at least not without story inconsistencies (no, I don't think any of the examples given here would have worked well). And Bioware made the design decision to start with a mystery.

And speaking of tutorials: common trope or not, they are necessary to show the cranks and nooks of the game. Where would these have been included naturally during an origin? Because 30 minutes talking/reading at the start is not a good sell pitch for a game like this.

[Lezio]

My fear is that if we would have had an origin starting at the conclave, this topic would still have thrived on the forums, but be along the lines "Why didn't we get an Ostwick origin? It wouldn't have been much to add..." There will always be those who'd like to experience "more", who would have liked to see the character's beginning, etc.

My point is not to disrespect those opinions, but I myself think that would have made a different game, at least the first half; I don't think it would have been possible to include that without revealing more about Coryphypants/Grey Wardens/fate of Justinia - at least not without story inconsistencies (no, I don't think any of the examples given here would have worked well). And Bioware made the design decision to start with a mystery.

And speaking of tutorials: common trope or not, they are necessary to show the cranks and nooks of the game. Where would these have been included naturally during an origin? Because 30 minutes talking/reading at the start is not a good sell pitch for a game like this.

 

I couldn't disagree more with what you're saying (also, we are on the internet so you can't hear my tone of voice but i'm not angry,  just discussing )

 

I don't really think that "Eh, if they did that people would be complaining about that" can be considered a "justification" of any kind. By that standard it would be better to just do nothing at all.

As someone already said, they could have just cut it at "Someone, please help me" and it would have kept all of the mistery while also having a more organic (and less, CODEX CODEX CODEX) intro to the game. Also, it would have been hearing and talking, which, again, is much more organic than reading Codex for 15 minutes and having people just feeding us information about everything in the first 5 minutes of the game (Like, seriously, hearing about the wars/areas/whatever during the Conclave ala Witch Hunt[where you can actually listen 2 mages talking about the situation in Kirkwal but it's in the background so eh] would have been nice foreshadowing, having Mother Giselle just spewing about the state of Crestwood/Emprise du Lion/others one after the other is just "oh, so that's where i'll go")

 

The bolded part just makes me sad, mainly because it's probably what they thought too

[Wulfram]

And speaking of tutorials: common trope or not, they are necessary to show the cranks and nooks of the game. Where would these have been included naturally during an origin? Because 30 minutes talking/reading at the start is not a good sell pitch for a game like this.

Tutorials are never going to be fully natural, but I think they're less jarring when you've got a somewhat smaller scale, lower tempo story than the imminent end of the world going on. You can include the necessarily easy fights without their easiness making some sense within the world.

I'd also argue that 30 minutes with extremely limited role-play isn't a very good intro for this sort of game. Particularly since low level combat in Dragon Age basically sucks.

DAI's introduction was still a lot better than Mass Effect 3's though.

[Addictress]

DAI's introduction was still a lot better than Mass Effect 3's though.

What?
Do you mean the tutorial mechanics or the story?

[Wulfram]

What?
Do you mean the tutorial mechanics or the story?

Both. Well, more the writing than the story perhaps. Shepard just talks a lot of rubbish with barely a nod towards interactivity, and the "council" are pretty terrible too.

The tutorial stuff is just very blunt and jarring. There's no sense of being able to naturally play the game.

[Addictress]

Both. Well, more the writing than the story perhaps. Shepard just talks a lot of rubbish with barely a nod towards interactivity, and the "council" are pretty terrible too.

The tutorial stuff is just very blunt and jarring. There's no sense of being able to naturally play the game.

Shepard and Anderson run through Canada and wrestle husks, reach out to a child in a vent shaft (who later dies before his eyes), climb buildings and squeeze through debris, and hunker down in cover against an infinite onslaught of cannibals until the Normandy could rescue them, which involved sliding around to find ammo in between shots. That's not interactive to you?

My inquisitor killed a few shades and wisps, then closed two rifts which were identical to the thousands of rifts in the rest of the game. Also the opening was some standard random prisoner in a jail cell, not an international committee looking out glass panels as a reaper descends.

[Fiskrens]

Shepard and Anderson run through Canada and wrestle husks, reach out to a child in a vent shaft (who later dies before his eyes), climb buildings and squeeze through debris, and hunker down in cover against an infinite onslaught of cannibals until the Normandy could rescue them, which involved sliding around to find ammo in between shots. That's not interactive to you?
My inquisitor killed a few shades and wisps, then closed two rifts which were identical to the thousands of rifts in the rest of the game. Also the opening was some standard random prisoner in a jail cell, not an international committee looking out glass panels as a reaper descends.

The Mass Effect series does a better job in introducing the player to the gameplay, agreed. I still think DAI does this best of the DA games, though; DAO is what we're discussing here, and DA2 only made you play someone über generic-face for a while, and then just made you miss the abilities you had just got a taste of.

[BansheeOwnage]

I always figured they do. You'd expect the Dalish to be combat trained, mages are all trained, if you're a dwarf you're in the Carta, so again trained. If you're a Qunari you're a mercenary and therefore trained for combat. And human nobles are usually trained for combat too.

You could choose to head canon a character with no combat training I suppose, but then if that makes the story jarring it's your own fault!

That's one reason why a City Elf in DAO never made it past the origin story. I found the idea of them being sufficiently gifted in combat to be the HoF too far-fetched.

Well that's why I said it goes both ways. It's bizarre that if you did have combat training (especially for mages and mercs, who should be fully capable by now) you start out so crappy and with so few abilities. Such is the way of things in RPGs though.

 

Also, we're not told if nobles are trained in combat as a rule, and we're not told if nobles in Ostwick specifically are. Even a handwave saying they were would have solved that problem.

 

Well...  .

 

Player =/= Character...

I'm not sure what you mean, I wasn't talking about players. Though I did say that gameplay-story segregation is so common it's almost universal.

[nightscrawl]

I guess I don't understand this. What FiveThreeTen posted as an example is exactly the kind of thing I'm wishing was included in DAI as the "origin." I do see it as the personal connection you don't seem too keen on. It establishes our character, provides us a few RP options on how the PC feels about their purpose at the Conclave and sets up their relationship to their background. I don't need the game to start in Ostwick or the Dalish clan or wherever, the origins could all start with our arrival at the Conclave. It's still going to provide the PC better context to the situation than "I just woke up in the Fade and don't remember anything about the Conclave."

I didn't mind the Grumpy Guard example FiveThreeTen posted. I regard that example as similar to the Josephine dialogue, which I liked quite a bit. By personal connection I'm mainly referring to specific people that the PC is saddled with. Most of the time, even if you are given the option to express negativity afterward, the presentation of those extra characters expects you to care about them, which I dislike and prefer not to have.

[BansheeOwnage]

Nightscrawl. By personal connection, you mean when you meet siblings/parents/mentors/crime associates in the Origins?

Because that worked for me. I could see how Cyrion or Daddy and Mommy Cousland could bother some people, especially if your PC looks doesn't match theirs but a workaround to this was already provided by Bioware with the Hawke family. On a different engine sure but it doesn't hurt to at least consider the option for future DA games.

 

I certainly wouldn't complain about some specific quests latter.

But choices, even small, even not really acknowledged by NPCs really manage to make me more engaged in the game world and with the story. I think they already managed to do it in Origins, wasn't perfect but still satisfying for me.

I recently replayed the Brosca prologue, and even with those personal connections present, it's amazing how many options I had compared to Inquistion. I was able to act friendly or not towards Leske and give an opinion to Rica regarding her liaison with Belhen. Those options are meaningless in the grand scale of things but I think they remain relevant in terms of the player engagment.

 

I'm aware the dialogue system evolved (voiced PC an all), became more streamlined but they managed to pull off "something along those lines" in those dialogues you have with Josephine/Cassandra at the beginning of the game. So I don't think it's such a stretch to think they could implement those kind of dialogues in a playable prologue (maybe shorter than Origins, since there is a crowd that apparently get bored quickly if things aren't rushing and if there are "too much dialogues") (although I'm not super optimistic either on Bioware willingness to do this)

^Just to be clear I know that's not the problem you voiced with Origins but I think sim-ran reported they knew people abandonned DAO because of the pace at the beginning

They shouldn't take people who aren't interested in RPGs into account while designing RPGs. I know, I know... Wishful thinking. But still!

 

My fear is that if we would have had an origin starting at the conclave, this topic would still have thrived on the forums, but be along the lines "Why didn't we get an Ostwick origin? It wouldn't have been much to add..." There will always be those who'd like to experience "more", who would have liked to see the character's beginning, etc.

My point is not to disrespect those opinions, but I myself think that would have made a different game, at least the first half; I don't think it would have been possible to include that without revealing more about Coryphypants/Grey Wardens/fate of Justinia - at least not without story inconsistencies (no, I don't think any of the examples given here would have worked well). And Bioware made the design decision to start with a mystery.

And speaking of tutorials: common trope or not, they are necessary to show the cranks and nooks of the game. Where would these have been included naturally during an origin? Because 30 minutes talking/reading at the start is not a good sell pitch for a game like this.

Regardless of it the tutorial worked, there really needed to be an option to disable it for subsequent playthroughs. Ugh. You know how some people were just venting about hearing Cassandra's exposition a million times? Well the tutorial that paused my game for things I already knew bugged the heck out of me.

[nightscrawl]

Regardless of it the tutorial worked, there really needed to be an option to disable it for subsequent playthroughs.

 
Totally agree. I might be incorrect -- it's been a long time -- but didn't DAO have a similar feature?

[vbibbi]

I didn't mind the Grumpy Guard example FiveThreeTen posted. I regard that example as similar to the Josephine dialogue, which I liked quite a bit. By personal connection I'm mainly referring to specific people that the PC is saddled with. Most of the time, even if you are given the option to express negativity afterward, the presentation of those extra characters expects you to care about them, which I dislike and prefer not to have.

Okay that makes sense. It seems there are two camps of people against origins, those who want later references to the origins which they feel are lacking, and those who don't want any origins because they define the PC too much.

Personally, I don't see a great difference between being saddled with a temporary companion at the beginning whom we can react to in various ways, and having all permanent companions be optional to recruit and most of them able to be kicked out. We can still voice disapproval for their presence, it's just that we know the temporary companion won't be around for too long.

[BansheeOwnage]

 
Totally agree. I might be incorrect -- it's been a long time -- but didn't DAO have a similar feature?

I can't remember either unfortunately. It's been too long for me too.

[In Exile]

Okay that makes sense. It seems there are two camps of people against origins, those who want later references to the origins which they feel are lacking, and those who don't want any origins because they define the PC too much.

Personally, I don't see a great difference between being saddled with a temporary companion at the beginning whom we can react to in various ways, and having all permanent companions be optional to recruit and most of them able to be kicked out. We can still voice disapproval for their presence, it's just that we know the temporary companion won't be around for too long.

 

Or a third group - which I am part of - that thinks that any origin story should be fundamentally tied to the main plot, thereby interlacing your background with the principal conflict of the game. Using DA:O as an example, it would be various variants of being a Grey Warden - in different places in Thedas, or in different roles, or in different set ups, but always a Grey Warden with ties to the order. 

But I think both groups would object to that one. 

[FiveThreeTen]

I didn't mind the Grumpy Guard example FiveThreeTen posted. I regard that example as similar to the Josephine dialogue, which I liked quite a bit. By personal connection I'm mainly referring to specific people that the PC is saddled with. Most of the time, even if you are given the option to express negativity afterward, the presentation of those extra characters expects you to care about them, which I dislike and prefer not to have.

I guess I don't really have a problem that the game strongly suggested I should care about Shianni, the kidnapped women and my family in the CE and HN origins because it didn't feel too forced, and sort of made sense to me and didn't really prevent me imagining the relationships weren't so rosy and warm, though I admit the game stir you subtly in a direction.

The only instance where I did do a double take was when I met that annoying guy, Jowan, and the game presented my character as his best friend, but it was still just a minor annoyance for me.

Maybe the easy way around is giving a reasonable number of options even if it's never going to cover every way the player wants to play. I guess I prefer to take the risk of running into some subtly forced characterization rather than go for a more blank state PC.

 

 
Totally agree. I might be incorrect -- it's been a long time -- but didn't DAO have a similar feature?

Yes, although I don't get what they mean by "both types of tutorial", not that it's really important:

Spoiler

[FiveThreeTen]

They shouldn't take people who aren't interested in RPGs into account while designing RPGs. I know, I know... Wishful thinking. But still!

Well, you won't find me disagreeing on this. Market needs to be expanded for profitability. This in an objective reason. Doesn't mean we have to like some design choices that we can suspect are induced by it. So I'll continue to whine about some stuff, even at the risk of sounding entitled

[AlanC9]

Or a third group - which I am part of - that thinks that any origin story should be fundamentally tied to the main plot, thereby interlacing your background with the principal conflict of the game. Using DA:O as an example, it would be various variants of being a Grey Warden - in different places in Thedas, or in different roles, or in different set ups, but always a Grey Warden with ties to the order. 

But I think both groups would object to that one.

Keep at this long enough and we'll prove that there's no tolerable beginning for a CRPG whatsoever.

[Absafraginlootly]

I hated the way DA2 and DAI started, after the crisis had already happened and your just dealing with the aftermath, no chance to establish how your character feels about things before everything in their life turned upside down.

 

I loved origins, but even without origins they could still have had an actual beginning, but they didn't and for me both games suffered for it.

 

Imagine for a moment if DAO hadn't had origins and instead had started at the beginning of Ostagar, you'd still pick a background talk to people, establish your character and decide what the details of that background were before the battle and everything going to ****. Now imagine they'd just start with the battle cutscene and then you wake up in Flemeths hut, surprise your the only two grey wardens left! Terrible. That's how I feel about DAI beginning.

[vbibbi]

Or a third group - which I am part of - that thinks that any origin story should be fundamentally tied to the main plot, thereby interlacing your background with the principal conflict of the game. Using DA:O as an example, it would be various variants of being a Grey Warden - in different places in Thedas, or in different roles, or in different set ups, but always a Grey Warden with ties to the order. 

But I think both groups would object to that one. 

 

Would you say Hawke was a type of this origin? Granted, there was only one origin rather than selecting from a few, but Hawke's background informed the rest of the plot. And I think that was part of the reason why Bio didn't even consider offering multiple races/backgrounds to play, since the plot would have had to change significantly for each background, essentially creating multiple games diverging from the very start.

 

 

The only instance where I did do a double take was when I met that annoying guy, Jowan, and the game presented my character as his best friend, but it was still just a minor annoyance for me.

 

And even then, we could RP that he thought we were friends but we only tolerated him and were only too happy to turn him in to the First Enchanter.

 

 

I do agree with others on the thread that DAO didn't implement origins well past Ostagar, though. It would have been nice if there had been additional dialogue options and perhaps a few alternative quest solutions based on origin. DAI did better in bringing the PC's background into play throughout the game, though I would like more of this in future games.

[JadeDragon]

The thing with the origins in Origins is that successfully accomplished there purpose. While they may not have connected heavily to the Grey Wardens past recruitment that is because that was not the purpose. The point of the origins was to introduce the player to various perspectives and lore of the different groups we would interact with in the game. Each Origin felt more invested to a different plot point then the other. Which to me personally helped Origins be more replayable.

 

Human Noble - introduced the players to Fereldan Nobility and connected us to one of the main villains in the plot Arl Howe and Civil War Plotline.

Mages - introduced players to the life of a circle mage, the fade and connected us to Jowan by default made them connected to Redcliffe plot and Broken Circle plot.

City Elf - introduced us to life as a city elf and connected us also Vaughn and the Denerim plot.

Dalish El - introduced us to the Dalish Clans and connected us to the Mirrors and while not our Dalish Clan a Warden seperated from their clan would still feel sometype of emotions seeing another clan.

Dwarf Commoner - introduced the life of a casteless dwarf and connected us to Jarvia and the Carta which was still connectd to some of the Dwarf plot.

Dwarf Noble - introduced Dwarf Politics and connected us to Bhelen and the political part of the Dwarven plot.

 

So while it is true our Origins for the most part did not impact the plot because they were not suppose to. Instead they gave us a preview to various other main missions. None of them needed to involve Grey Wardens because we would be playing a whole game from the grey warden perspective. The Archdemon plot was not ment to be experienced before hand like the others. 

 

Now where Inquisition failed with there race selection was there was no presentation of these various perspectives especially for new players. If the Origins in Origins was just Codex would it have really felt different killing Howe has a Human Noble vs a Dalish Elf? If race selection is going to be in the series there needs to be a point were we can play the various perspective or else the races purely become cosmetic. Sure there is small factors and dialogue moments where race matter but extra dialogue does less for the plot then playing a origin that actually connects to the games presentation. Why couldnt Dwarf Inquisitors been connected with the Carta Dwarves we meet in the Hinterlands or had extra info on the red lyrium smuggling? Qunari was added last minute so they are fine. Humans should have had a moment to have felt more connected to the Mage-Templar Waror Chantry. Elves seemed the best off in-game racially and there moments with Arbor Wilds but they could have at least had something go on with the clan we met in the Plains. Inquisition as a whole was a game that relied heavy on reading the books prior, codexs and wartable missions, A game should be more presentation and less reading. The game was bought to be played not read.

[Joseph Warrick]

I don't think so. Origins are introductions to the world, eg the mage origin shows you the circle, the templars, etc. We don't need to learn what dalish firsts or noble marchers are like by now. That information is assumed, now you can build upon that to craft a personality.

Regarding being put in the middle of things all of a sudden, that's common, remember Neverwinter Nights or Kotor.

[BansheeOwnage]

I don't think so. Origins are introductions to the world, eg the mage origin shows you the circle, the templars, etc. We don't need to learn what dalish firsts or noble marchers are like by now. That information is assumed, now you can build upon that to craft a personality.

Regarding being put in the middle of things all of a sudden, that's common, remember Neverwinter Nights or Kotor.

We don't? Because I have no idea what Ostwick is like, or what being a noble there is like. We've had no information about it in previous games. Are there crazy politics there like Orlais and Tevinter? Is it more subdued? How are nobles treated by the commoners? There is a lot more that we don't know than we do. That applies to being a Dalish First as well, though slightly less so. So no, that information isn't assumed, and it wasn't enough to craft a personality for me.

 

Common doesn't mean good (or bad), it just means common.

[myahele]

An Origins-like DLC would have been nice where we could roam around (and maybe even fight?) in Haven and speak to everyone there. Make it only playable after the "Into the Abyss" or beating Corypheus. 

 

Though I suppose what's done is done. I don't think we'll ever have an origins-like prologue. Although something like DA2 would be decent enough