360 réponses à ce sujet

[Tsuga C]

thebigbenman wrote...
I'm not familiar with the world of Toril,...

Toril = Forgotten Realms.

I have no objection to scenes of happiness and beauty for the purposes you suggest, but at the time of DA:O there's not a lot of that to go around in Ferelden.  The books really set the tone and I'm glad that it's devoid of most of the overwrought, cutsie-pie crap of the Forgotten Realms.  Keep lobbying for such changes in DA2 if it's critically important to you, but I'd rather see arms and panoplies scaled and designed with an eye to history instead of the larger-than-life silliness that's in the game now.  I don't need to see the social harmony and beautiful vistas unmarred by burning settlements and darkspawn hordes to know that Ferelden wasn't always such a mess.

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

That has nothing to do with what you said in the quote.

True.  I fell back into a pattern out of habit.

You control the characters actions, even if not the decisions,

Decisions aren't actions?

and you make a mistake in assuming that just because you cannot develop any caring, sympathy, empathy, or relatability with a character you do not inhabit that others are similarly incapable. It's non sequitor.

No.  If the player inhabits the character, then caring about the character is a guaranteed outcome (assuming the player wants that).  If the player simply observes the character, then whether the player cares for the character is a crapshoot, and unknowable to the designers.

[soteria]

In regards to not liking the voice actor, I prefer the female Shepard. When I tried to play a male paragon Shepard, he just ended up sounding like a motard. That's military slang for "motivated retard." That was a combination of the delivery and writing, though. I can't blame the actor entirely for that.



I think my favorite thing about a voiced main character is hearing and seeing the persuade/intimidate checks. When it's all written, sometimes the persuade options don't seem as believable--a lot of times the only real difference in what you're saying is the [Persaude] tag in front of the line. The delivery really sells it for me. A favorite scene in the first mass effect is using the intimidate options to defend the Normandy after the surprise inspection--and I don't think it would have had the impact without main character voice acting.



A player voice certainly has its downsides, though. I didn't really care for having to guess what I was going to say, among other things. It probably would have been unplayable for me if the game hadn't telegraphed which options were paragon and renegade.

[thebigbenman]

Tsuga C wrote...

thebigbenman wrote...
I'm not familiar with the world of Toril,...

Toril = Forgotten Realms.

I don't need to see the social harmony and beautiful vistas unmarred by burning settlements and darkspawn hordes to know that Ferelden wasn't always such a mess.

Oh, I see, and Forgotten Realms= Baldur's Gate, correct? Yes that world could be a bit over the top, at times... 

I think we'll continue to disagree on the "beautiful vistas" argument, which is fine. Otherwise, I am in in agreement with you on the topic of medieval realism, as it applies to this setting, at least. I won't be lobbying for any further changes, however, as I've said my piece. Bioware can do whatever they feel is best without further argument from me!

purplesunset- Fantastic book, isn't it? I'm glad I am not alone in enjoying it!

[Sylvius the Mad]

soteria wrote...

A player voice certainly has its downsides, though. I didn't really care for having to guess what I was going to say

That appeared to be the whole point of Mass Effect's presentation.  Even when the uttered line was short enough to fit on the wheel display (like "Why?"), it was never there.  The designers went out of their way to make the dialogue system hard to use.

[Mordaedil]

thebigbenman wrote...
Oh, I see, and Forgotten Realms= Baldur's Gate, correct? Yes that world could be a bit over the top, at times... 

Technically, it's Forgotten Realms >= Baldur's Gate.

Baldur's Gate is a city in the Sword Coast region of a continent called Faerûn, on a planet/plane called Toril.

Forgotten Realms encompasses the setting, or the Universe that gameplay takes place in.

Imagine Forgotten Realms is the car you drive in, Toril is the grocery bag you put in the luggage, the Sword Coast is that package of carrots, and Baldur's Gate is a single carrot.

[thebigbenman]

Mordaedil wrote...

thebigbenman wrote...
Oh, I see, and Forgotten Realms= Baldur's Gate, correct? Yes that world could be a bit over the top, at times... 

Technically, it's Forgotten Realms >= Baldur's Gate.

Baldur's Gate is a city in the Sword Coast region of a continent called Faerûn, on a planet/plane called Toril.

Forgotten Realms encompasses the setting, or the Universe that gameplay takes place in.

Imagine Forgotten Realms is the car you drive in, Toril is the grocery bag you put in the luggage, the Sword Coast is that package of carrots, and Baldur's Gate is a single carrot.

As far as carrots go, that was a quite a tasty, satisfying carrot... Thanks for the explanation, I've learned my new fact for the day!

[1varangian]

Just got back to playing after a few months and I realized the combat fails to impress me now.

Everyone's hitting % is so high the characters are basically just standing there taking turns to pound eachother to death. It's a shame because I know there are some cool animations for blocking and dodging but the PC's or enemies just don't evade attacks at all, especially at low levels. It just looks very lackluster and pretty stupid to be honest. PC's are heavily injured after every fight but heal almost instantly afterwards. There are no options for fighting defensively for two handed and dual wielders. I would like to come out of a fight uninjured thanks to my brilliant tactics. Or luck, for once.

I think combat would greatly improve visually if the combatants would actually hit less often but for more damage. Flanking would also become more important. Combat is also too predictable with large HP pools slowly being depleted. And I wouldn't mind if the fights took just a little bit longer to finish. Or having longer, cooler, more intensive fights but less encounters.

Modifié par 1varangian, 26 mai 2010 - 11:07 .

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
You control the characters actions, even if not the decisions,

Decisions aren't actions?

Be careful. Don't let your own assertions contradict each other. A decision is something that takes place entirely in the mind, whereas actions are physical. The same can be said of human relationships and the actions that result of them. Where are you going to draw the line on this? 

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If the player simply observes the
character, then whether the player cares for the character is a
crapshoot, and unknowable to the designers.

Yet movie goers care deeply about the characters in films all the time. I understand the difference between a game and a movie, and am not trying to erase the line between them, but the "character" is the parallel between the two. Variability of character is far from being the definitive feature for developing an attachment to the character.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 26 mai 2010 - 11:38 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

A decision is something that takes place

Based on that, I'm calling it an action.

The same can be said of human relationships and the actions that result of them. Where are you going to draw the line on this?

I'll draw the line somewhere before positing the existence of relationships.

Things that take place must exist.  If relationships do things, then they also exist.  But I have yet to see evidence of an action that is performed by a relationship that couldn't just as well be described as the collective actions of individuals.

Yet movie goers care deeply about the characters in films all the time.

Do they?  I have a hard time believing I could devote dozens of hours to a single cinematic character the way I do with RPG characters.

[AlanC9]

Mordaedil wrote...
Imagine Forgotten Realms is the car you drive in, Toril is the grocery bag you put in the luggage, the Sword Coast is that package of carrots, and Baldur's Gate is a single carrot.

Of course, BG2 happens in Amn and environs. So make that a carrot and.... an apple?

For ToB i think we'd need a junk-food metaphor.

Modifié par AlanC9, 27 mai 2010 - 02:25 .

[AlanC9]

1varangian wrote...

Just got back to playing after a few months and I realized the combat fails to impress me now.

Everyone's hitting % is so high the characters are basically just standing there taking turns to pound eachother to death. It's a shame because I know there are some cool animations for blocking and dodging but the PC's or enemies just don't evade attacks at all, especially at low levels. It just looks very lackluster and pretty stupid to be honest. PC's are heavily injured after every fight but heal almost instantly afterwards. There are no options for fighting defensively for two handed and dual wielders. I would like to come out of a fight uninjured thanks to my brilliant tactics. Or luck, for once.

I think combat would greatly improve visually if the combatants would actually hit less often but for more damage. Flanking would also become more important. Combat is also too predictable with large HP pools slowly being depleted. And I wouldn't mind if the fights took just a little bit longer to finish. Or having longer, cooler, more intensive fights but less encounters.

I have no idea if this is about animations or the actual combat system.

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

I think the writers did a fantastic job of incorporating all their background lore into DA:O. Discovering nuglets of history here and there was what I enjoyed the most.



What didn't work for me was the limited class skills. I did like some aspect of the talent trees, but the lack of multiclassing was a letdown. And no...I'm not going into a "DnD is better" rant. But why couldn't a rogue pick up mage skills or a warrior pick the occaisional lock? Some of the specializations help, but it's far from complete.



Another issue I had was the streamlining. I'm not looking for Oblivion. But when I heard it was a "Spiritual Successor to Baldur's Gate" I was hoping for some adventuring options. There were a few places to wander off to, and I enjoyed the random encounter battles or story snippets which could happen but it didn't quite match up to Baldur's Gate's extras.



That said, I was also hoping DA:O would build upon concepts learned in NWN. NWN had limitations on exploration. For it's time, that was perfectly understandible. I was hoping DA:O would rise above those a bit, including more dynamic exploration of areas such as swimming and climbing, even use of some sort of a mount (no Zevran references please).



I'm really hoping a continuation of the DA series will include some more dynamic exploration elements. I'm not talking full-on Tomb Raider junk with characters finger crawling along cliffs or jumping over chasms but at least let us walk along a log over a river in the Brecilian Forest. Drop us a walkmesh here and there, let us climb a vine or even swim across a pond with our characters please.



Overall, it's a heck of a game. The dialogue is top notch, characters are great, plot is pretty good and combat challenging enough.

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
A decision is something that takes place

Based on that, I'm calling it an action.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
The same can be said of human relationships and the actions that result of them. Where are you going to draw the line on this?

I'll draw the line somewhere before positing the existence of relationships.

Things that take place must exist.  If relationships do things, then they also exist.  But I have yet to see evidence of an action that is performed by a relationship that couldn't just as well be described as the collective actions of individuals.

Fair enough. But, as definitive and stringent as your deliniations are, I'd still like to see exactly where that line is drawn. And I'm still claiming that relationships exist, based on previously stated observations. I'll also ad that relationships take place. The span of time they cover is just often incredibly longer than that of a single decision.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
Yet movie goers care deeply about the characters in films all the time.

Do they?  I have a hard time believing I could devote dozens of hours to a single cinematic character the way I do with RPG characters.

People have been deeply relating to characters in movies since before movies had color or audio.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 27 mai 2010 - 03:39 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Fair enough. But, as definitive and stringent as your deliniations are, I'd still like to see exactly where that line is drawn.

I draw the line between things whose existence I need to posit in order to explain observed phenomena, and things whose existence is unnecessary to explain observed phenomena.

And I'm still claiming that relationships exist, based on previously stated observations. I'll also ad that relationships take place. The span of time they cover is just often incredibly longer than that of a single decision.

But why not describe then as sequences of individual events?  Suggesting that together, this sequents of events (including decisions) makes up a new thing called a "relationship" is unnecessary, and thus is an unscientific hypothesis.

People have been deeply relating to characters in movies since before movies had color or audio.

For a few hours at a time, only.  That's not really comparable.

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
But why not describe then as sequences of individual events?  Suggesting that together, this sequents of events (including decisions) makes up a new thing called a "relationship" is unnecessary, and thus is an unscientific hypothesis.

I'll refer back to mathematical methods once again. Why bother with making sumations/integrals? It describes further consequences/implications. It is thoroughly scientific to describe velocity as an equation of distance traveled over time, and then to integrate that equation to find the total distance traveled, and that's just a a very simple example. The same can be said of the individual events that occur between interacting people, and the summation of those events to quantify an overall effect of the interactions over time.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
People have been deeply relating to characters in movies since before movies had color or audio.

For a few hours at a time, only.  That's not really comparable.

How about books, then? Books can take weeks to read and have comparable results.

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

How about books, then? Books can take weeks to read and have comparable results.

Books are a much better example, but there is the risk in books that different readers will identifyu with different characters within the book.  We could have an honest disagreement about who the protagonist is (the same is true of movies).

Different characters appeal to different audiences.  A character designed by that audiece, however, has no such limitation.

I'll refer back to mathematical methods once again. Why bother with making sumations/integrals? It describes further consequences/implications. It is thoroughly scientific to describe velocity as an equation of distance traveled over time, and then to integrate that equation to find the total distance traveled, and that's just a a very simple example.

But there you're not positing the existence of anything extra.  You're just following logic (the math) to see what conclusions are required by your accepted facts.

The existence of relationships is not a required conclusion.

The same can be said of the individual events that occur between interacting people, and the summation of those events to quantify an overall effect of the interactions over time.

Totalling all the interactions to see what effect they (a number of individual events) had while working in concert is not the same thing as suggesting they combined to form something more than just the discrete events you're counting.

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Different characters appeal to different audiences.  A character designed by that audiece, however, has no such limitation.

The point is that voiced characters are a barrier to some, but in no way is that demonstrable as a consistently bad approach. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that the majority of gamers disagree with you. Remember, this exchange started when I pointed out that you should have said that statement applied specifically to you and was no applicable as a generalization.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Totalling all the interactions to see what effect they (a number of individual events) had while working in concert is not the same thing as suggesting they combined to form something more than just the discrete events you're counting.

But that is precisely what it is by mathematical definition. And, as you know, math is simply a specicific language of logic. A summation (integral) destinctly identifies chracteristics. This is, explicitly, how one can take the individual quantifiction of each event in a series of events and extrapolate that to the complete quantification of the sum of the events. In this particular application it's taking the concept back past series and into set theory, where the events and quantities are not necessarily number based.

[Brockololly]

Hmmm... one aspect of DAO that failed to impress me were the skies. Yup, the skies were horribly boring and overcast. Its just that having the same bland skies in most levels hints at the fact that the environments overall were never that awe inspiring.

Awakening was better in the level design I thought, but I never got the feeling of immersion or any "Wow!" moments from the environments. Maybe Ostagar when you 1st go across the bridge, but it would be nice to have some more epic scenery and vistas in DA2.  Like in Haven when you're supposed to be high in the Frostbacks, you never get a big vista to look far off into the world around you- instead you always get the same hazy, bland sky obscuring everything.

As an example, most of the time the the sky is the same hazy, overcast like this:


I would love it if there were more scenic vistas or more interesting skies and backdrops to the levels in DA, for example like Zaeed's loyalty mission from ME2:

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

The point is that voiced characters are a barrier to some, but in no way is that demonstrable as a consistently bad approach.

And my point is that it is a consistently bad approach because it guarantees that the character will not be accepted by some players.

In fact, I'd be willing to wager that the majority of gamers disagree with you.

Yes, but those gamers are wrong.  They think the voice adds something to the game (and maybe it does), but it doesn't add as much for them as it takes away from others.  I say again, an unvoiced PC allowed every player to create a personality with which he identifies.  No one - not one gamer - gets left behind by an unvoiced character.

Remember, this exchange started when I pointed out that you should have said that statement applied specifically to you and was no applicable as a generalization.

Voicing the character is guaranteed to alienate some players.

An unvoiced character can serve every player (whether it does serve every player is up to the players, but it can).

Therefore, the unvoiced character is universally superior.

But that is precisely what it is by mathematical definition. And, as you know, math is simply a specicific language of logic. A summation (integral) destinctly identifies chracteristics. This is, explicitly, how one can take the individual quantifiction of each event in a series of events and extrapolate that to the complete quantification of the sum of the events.

That requires the (unnecessary) assumption that there is something in between the individual events.  It's true when finding the area under the curve (because the curve is continuous), but that's not necessarily true with human behaviour.

Your analogy is not strictly analogous.

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
The point is that voiced characters are a barrier to some, but in no way is that demonstrable as a consistently bad approach.

And my point is that it is a consistently bad approach because it guarantees that the character will not be accepted by some players.

the_one_54321 wrote...
In fact, I'd be willing to wager that the majority of gamers disagree with you.

Yes, but those gamers are wrong.  They think the voice adds something to the game (and maybe it does), but it doesn't add as much for them as it takes away from others.  I say again, an unvoiced PC allowed every player to create a personality with which he identifies.  No one - not one gamer - gets left behind by an unvoiced character.

the_one_54321 wrote...
Remember, this exchange started when I pointed out that you should have said that statement applied specifically to you and was no applicable as a generalization.

Voicing the character is guaranteed to alienate some players.

An unvoiced character can serve every player (whether it does serve every player is up to the players, but it can).

Therefore, the unvoiced character is universally superior.

Your logic is flawed. You completely discount the fact that some players actively enjoy closed storylines and fully definied characters.

I would feel disappointed and left behind if no developers made games like that anymore. Frankly, I'd be angry about it. Hundreds of thousands of people enjoy playing some games specifically because they are made like that. They aren't wrong. It's preference. A personal preference cannot be wrong, as there is no right or wrong value attached to anything that is completely subjective.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
But that is precisely what it is by mathematical definition. And, as you know, math is simply a specicific language of logic. A summation (integral) destinctly identifies chracteristics. This is, explicitly, how one can take the individual quantifiction of each event in a series of events and extrapolate that to the complete quantification of the sum of the events.

That requires the (unnecessary) assumption that there is something in between the individual events.  It's true when finding the area under the curve (because the curve is continuous), but that's not necessarily true with human behaviour.

Your analogy is not strictly analogous.

Are you suggesting that a human life is not continuous? The results are the summation of the continuously occuring events of a persons life. Events never stop happening. They are definitively continuous. There is no "smallest" time step.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 28 mai 2010 - 05:32 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Are you suggesting that a human life is not continuous?

I'm suggesting that groups of humans are not continuous.

Each human exists on his own.  A "relationship" between humans is the sum of individual actions, but it isn't anything beyond that.  A "community" is a series of individual humans, but it isn't anything beyond that.

There is a smallest measurement of groups of humans.  It's one human.  And that's where I stop.

[k9medusa]

Yeah, NWN 2 skies are better then DAO skies besides the moon (err mars). NWN2, I used too love to watch the sun rise and sets and stare the moon as she travels across the night sky....

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
Are you suggesting that a human life is not continuous?

I'm suggesting that groups of humans are not continuous.

Each human exists on his own.  A "relationship" between humans is the sum of individual actions, but it isn't anything beyond that.  A "community" is a series of individual humans, but it isn't anything beyond that.

There is a smallest measurement of groups of humans.  It's one human.  And that's where I stop.

The smallest measurement of a group of people is a single event in the life of one of those people. A person is not only the unit defined by living functioning flesh. A person, as you youself have put it, is defined by qualities of the mind, which are themselves a product of that persons life up until the present.

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

The smallest measurement of a group of people is a single event in the life of one of those people. A person is not only the unit defined by living functioning flesh. A person, as you youself have put it, is defined by qualities of the mind, which are themselves a product of that persons life up until the present.

That's even better.  You've reduced it further.

So why do you think relationships exist?