114 réponses à ce sujet

[HoonDing]

I'd say some of Troika's RPGs have much better writing & voice acting than Dragon Age. Bloodlines, in particular.

Modifié par virumor, 26 février 2010 - 07:11 .

[CarlSpackler]

The_Abyss wrote...


Not saying DA is a bad game, it IS good, but to me, storywise it still doesn't top planescape or ultima 7.

Glad to see some Ultima 7 love.  Although as I mentioned above, for story i actually preferred SI to U7:1, still loved both of them.  

[7th_Phoenix]

DA:O, at times for me, was good in writing in some parts and voice acting on other parts. I would say overall, it was great but there were just those little moments that bothered me... like 5 percent of the writing and voice acting I didn't like but in general, this is the first RPG I actually enjoyed.



The major stickler for DA:O, I think, is the digital acting -- the gestures and movements were overly redundant and predictable. Whenever I see it in real life whether it's someone crossing their arms or waving their hands, I automatically think oh, "BioWare acting." Not good.



All in all, there are games with even better writing and voice acting as well as acting in general... not RPGs specifically but I won't name them.

[Kothoses Rothenkisal]

Add me to the "Planescape : Torment had the best story" band wagon With Baldurs gate a close second and The Witcher in there too tbh. Dragon age does what it sets out to do very well dont get me wrong, but there were very very few suprise twists to the story.



Nothing has yet lived up to that "Holy SHEET" moment when you discover what you are in BG or the many many "I didnt see that coming" parts of PS:T. The brilliant part of both these games is that the parts you didnt see coming were not deliberatly convaluted or made up at the end to explain a bunch of forced coincidentals, but actual pivotal story points.



Dragon Age lacks that suspense BUT the dramatisation of the story forces you to press onwards with the game none the less, Great characterisations yes, Great Dramatisation yes, (though The Witcher beats it on the moral ambiguity and "Relative degrees of evil" front.



Dragon Age however is the ONLY modern RPG that blends these into a compelling ( though unoriginal) story. Ultimately succeeding at what Bioware RPGs are all about, the heros journey and the interaction with those who accompany him, DA is FAR FAR Superior to any other RPG on the market in that respect.

[Moogliepie]

Well, I'm not even done with the game (just got it yesterday), so it's not really fair for me to comment. But beyond the origin itself, the story feels very generic, and formulaic so far. Big army of evil orcs threatens the world, the responsibility to save it falls on your shoulders. Hmm, I've heard this somewhere before haven't I? I'm sure there will be the standard Bioware twist at some point, but so far, everything is pretty predictable.



There's too many games from the past that have excellent stories that I can't recall. Fallout 2, Deus Ex, even cartoony games like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had much more interesting plots than any Bioware game, even if they were lighter on the dialog.

[Moogliepie]

I should also add that this is a spoiler free forum, so this thread should probably be moved.

[Moogliepie]

CarlSpackler wrote...

The_Abyss wrote...


Not saying DA is a bad game, it IS good, but to me, storywise it still doesn't top planescape or ultima 7.

Glad to see some Ultima 7 love.  Although as I mentioned above, for story i actually preferred SI to U7:1, still loved both of them.  

How could I have forgotten U7? Well, I would put U4-U7 all in one massive arc.

[The Real Bowser]

Coming from games with crappy voice acting (such as the infamous World of Warcraft), I have to say that Bioware's voice acting never fails to make my jaw drop. This game is no exception, the voice acting was... exceptional. Yeah.

[simplificationizer]

Wretched Gnu wrote...

Colenda wrote...
What the BGs did in their dialogue - combine occasional melodramatic sincerity with lots of  tongue in cheek and comedy moments - was pretty much the only way to proceed, and they mostly got away with it.

Well, no, I think this was a major part of what was wrong with those games.  Amateur writers think you can just toss together comedy and melodrama like you're making a salad.  To pull that off, in reality, you have to be a master of dramatic tone.  The BG writers were, at best, masters of fan fiction.  The "comedy" was especially embarassing, as it was so clearly the product of adolescent boys (or the mentality thereof -- which, as we know, can extend well into one's adulthood, especially among those whose bookshelves are 90% genre fiction).  The DA dialogue, by contrast, was clearly written by adult professionals who know which connections should and shouldn't be made in an arc of dialogue, and who have an encompassing sense of tone (as opposed to the choo-choo train, "tack-on-the-next-line" approach of the BG games).

Wow, do you even know what you're saying? We're talking about frickin' video games here, with goblins and magic and pixels flashing on the screen. The BGs' writing is brilliant because it fits the games like a glove; DA's doesn't. The writing isn't bad, but it often clashes with the medium and makes me feel like I'm watching amateur theatre. Shame I can't post spoilers here.

If you want truly great writing, go read a classic. Don't go into a McDonald's and snobbishly scoff at the food.

(also, obligatory 'embarrassing')

[RangerSG]

simplificationizer wrote...

Wretched Gnu wrote...

Colenda wrote...
What the BGs did in their dialogue - combine occasional melodramatic sincerity with lots of  tongue in cheek and comedy moments - was pretty much the only way to proceed, and they mostly got away with it.

Well, no, I think this was a major part of what was wrong with those games.  Amateur writers think you can just toss together comedy and melodrama like you're making a salad.  To pull that off, in reality, you have to be a master of dramatic tone.  The BG writers were, at best, masters of fan fiction.  The "comedy" was especially embarassing, as it was so clearly the product of adolescent boys (or the mentality thereof -- which, as we know, can extend well into one's adulthood, especially among those whose bookshelves are 90% genre fiction).  The DA dialogue, by contrast, was clearly written by adult professionals who know which connections should and shouldn't be made in an arc of dialogue, and who have an encompassing sense of tone (as opposed to the choo-choo train, "tack-on-the-next-line" approach of the BG games).

Wow, do you even know what you're saying? We're talking about frickin' video games here, with goblins and magic and pixels flashing on the screen. The BGs' writing is brilliant because it fits the games like a glove; DA's doesn't. The writing isn't bad, but it often clashes with the medium and makes me feel like I'm watching amateur theatre. Shame I can't post spoilers here.

If you want truly great writing, go read a classic. Don't go into a McDonald's and snobbishly scoff at the food.

(also, obligatory 'embarrassing')

Well, seeing as most people think PS:T's writing is great, I think your argument shoots itself in the foot by assuming that a game's writing should not shoot for being more than genre cliches. I enjoyed BG's writing at the time. But it's hard to say the characters weren't cliche's of every PnP tabletop of the decade before.

DA's characters are more than that. Still tropes, perhaps, but they subvert the expectations at points. That's BETTER, not worse.

[simplificationizer]

RangerSG wrote...

Well, seeing as most people think PS:T's writing is great, I think your argument shoots itself in the foot by assuming that a game's writing should not shoot for being more than genre cliches. I enjoyed BG's writing at the time. But it's hard to say the characters weren't cliche's of every PnP tabletop of the decade before.

DA's characters are more than that. Still tropes, perhaps, but they subvert the expectations at points. That's BETTER, not worse.

I didn't particularly care for PS:T's writing either, for much the same reasons. Again, it's not BAD, it's just that there is a limit to the gamut of emotions that pixelized characters can elicit in me, especially fantasy characters. It's mostly the humorous characters that appeal to me (morrigan, alistair, minsc, jan, edwin, etc.).

[Wretched Gnu]

simplificationizer wrote...
Wow, do you even know what you're saying? We're talking about frickin' video games here, with goblins and magic and pixels flashing on the screen. The BGs' writing is brilliant because it fits the games like a glove; DA's doesn't. The writing isn't bad, but it often clashes with the medium and makes me feel like I'm watching amateur theatre. Shame I can't post spoilers here.

If you want truly great writing, go read a classic. Don't go into a McDonald's and snobbishly scoff at the food.

(also, obligatory 'embarrassing')

Of course one shouldn't look to video games if all one wants is great writing.  Fortunately, I never made such a bewildering statement.  My post was based on the simple and inarguable fact that among games that involve hours of written dialogue, one certainly can distinguish decent writing from awful writing.  Since I do bother to listen to the dialogue in these games, I much prefer the former.  Who doesn't?

And I find it frankly incomprensible that anyone would argue that the frequently insipid dialogue of the BG games is less distracting from the genre than DA's far superior dialogue.  Ignoring the unremitting phrase-block writing in BG's "serious" mode, the frequent forays into "humor" in those games had two modes: (1) the equivalent of grade-school boobie jokes, and (2) a "sarcasm" impressive only to twelve-year-olds, and which is the meat and potatoes of a given episode of Full House.

Modifié par Wretched Gnu, 27 février 2010 - 02:05 .

[Wretched Gnu]

Moogliepie wrote...

Well, I'm not even done with the game (just got it yesterday), so it's not really fair for me to comment. But beyond the origin itself, the story feels very generic, and formulaic so far. Big army of evil orcs threatens the world, the responsibility to save it falls on your shoulders. Hmm, I've heard this somewhere before haven't I? I'm sure there will be the standard Bioware twist at some point, but so far, everything is pretty predictable.

There's too many games from the past that have excellent stories that I can't recall. Fallout 2, Deus Ex, even cartoony games like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had much more interesting plots than any Bioware game, even if they were lighter on the dialog.

Although it's almost certainly a Quixotic task, I'd just like to point out again that the writing in a game is not at all the same thing as its story or plot.  The persistent habit of conflating these leads to some insane conclusions (for instance: the assertion that Stephen King, who comes up with some interesting plots, is a "good writer".)

[Curlain]

Wretched Gnu wrote...

simplificationizer wrote...
Wow, do you even know what you're saying? We're talking about frickin' video games here, with goblins and magic and pixels flashing on the screen. The BGs' writing is brilliant because it fits the games like a glove; DA's doesn't. The writing isn't bad, but it often clashes with the medium and makes me feel like I'm watching amateur theatre. Shame I can't post spoilers here.

If you want truly great writing, go read a classic. Don't go into a McDonald's and snobbishly scoff at the food.

(also, obligatory 'embarrassing')

Of course one shouldn't look to video games if all one wants is great writing.  Fortunately, I never made such a bewildering statement.  My post was based on the simple and inarguable fact that among games that involve hours of written dialogue, one certainly can distinguish decent writing from awful writing.  Since I do bother to listen to the dialogue in these games, I much prefer the former.  Who doesn't?

This is a sad statement however, I'm hoping for the day that we can have video games of certain genres (like the RPG genre) that can offer dialogue, writing and story on a par with books and films in all respects.  Shouldn't this be a goal for video games (at least some some genres), they can tell stories just as in other media, with the exception that they can be fully interactive with the gamer.  I think the games such as we see from BioWare are heading in the right direction, and I'm hoping one day we can say that there are games that are on a par with films or books in their capacity for great writing, characters, story and meaning.

[The_Abyss]

CarlSpackler wrote...

The_Abyss wrote...


Not saying DA is a bad game, it IS good, but to me, storywise it still doesn't top planescape or ultima 7.

Glad to see some Ultima 7 love.  Although as I mentioned above, for story i actually preferred SI to U7:1, still loved both of them.  

Wow, I thought I was the only old geezer who remembered U7. I liked serpent isle too, but I tend to lump U7+ SI as 1 game.

[Mlai00]

Although it would be more stealing from LOTR, I think the (long) middle segment of the game's plot would have benefitted from separating the player's band into 2 groups. One group goes around doing the side quests of gathering allies. The other group does the dirty work of fighting the Darkspawn horde and keeping it at bay long enough for the allies to be gathered.

I think that would have tightened up the middle with tension and urgency, without changing the gameplay engine. For example... the destruction of Lothering... your "wetworks" group would have been right there in the thick of it, and lost it.

And I don't think you should be allowed to change the party members in either group, except at a few points in the story. Increases replay value and also comraderie within each group; their wildly-different mission types breeds different group dynamics.

[stubbieAussie]

Claudia Blacks voicing of Morrigan is superb. She handles her sarcastic comments perfectly.

All the other voice acting ranges from good to excellent.

Bioware has always done a great job with voice acting.

DA:O is no exception.

Is it the "Best RPG writing and voice acting to date?" as the OP asks?

Who cares.....if you like it, enjoy it

[Frumyfrenzy]

Some people seem to suggest that good writing means unique and original storyline. Good writing for me is how convincing any given story is delivered, i.e. how credible characters and dialogues are and the likes. In this respect Dragon Age clearly raised the bar. For me Dragon Age indeed had the best writing, but it shares this trophy with Mass Effect. Digital acting did its job and there are only a few reactions (crossing arms in certain situations) which make me giggle because they are slightly displaced. But nevertheless, Dragon Age (and Mass Effect) raised the bar and I was astonished a few times, how Bioware managed to make computer animated characters personalities. Morrigan, Loghain - you name it. That is good writing for me, this is where Dragon Age surpasses other games I've played.

Modifié par Frumyfrenzy, 27 février 2010 - 04:31 .

[Mlai00]

The writing is excellent afaic, and a breath of fresh air from the cinematics of JRPGs, which focus on different things (mainly on making their characters accessible to teenagers who like J-pop idols, and on spouting melodramatic dissertations that seems to imply depth or epicness).

This game (my only exposure to Bioware so far) tells the story in a decidedly Western flavor, one which sticks to the depth and complexity found in real people... in a fantasy setting.



My one problem with the voiceacting... when a character is interrupted mid-speech by another character, the pause is always too long. Just as if the person was waiting to be interrupted. The cutoff should be immediate; it is an interruption after all. Since this is all digital acting which can be spliced/edited together, I don't know why there's always that unnatural pause.

[RangerSG]

Fallout 2 had an excellent "story"? Hmmm....actually it didn't even have an internally coherent story. And it's real "story" was the bolted together "stories" you built going from town to town. As a freeform RPG, there was no strong central narrative.

Now I love FO2. Still have it on my HD. But freeform RPG= minimal overarching story by definition.

Modifié par RangerSG, 28 février 2010 - 12:21 .

[Arbiter Libera]

virumor wrote...

I'd say some of Troika's RPGs have much better writing & voice acting than Dragon Age. Bloodlines, in particular.

Have to agree with this, especially when it comes to voice acting where Bloodlines stand firmly at the top. Sure, BioWare got big names for DA:O, but Bloodlines has phenomenal VA and it fits every character amazingly (seriously, I can't think of any bad lines from that game, it's just very natural and fitting).

[Delroc88]

dragon age is indeed one of the best rpgs i've ever played. up there with
suikoden 1&2
FF7& FF6
Fallout3
oblivion
iam sure mass effect is great but i dont own a cpu powerful enough to play it or a xbox .
if bioware would release mass effect 1&2 in like a box set for ps3 i would buy it for sure.

Modifié par Delroc88, 28 février 2010 - 01:33 .

[Wretched Gnu]

Colenda wrote...
For most non-initiates to literary studies, including me, 'writing' is a comprehensive word that includes both style and plot. Seems pedantic to insist on a distinction. A lot of people really don't care about nice prose, they want a juicy plot and dialogue to get their teeth into - so for them Stephen King is a good writer, John Banville is a boring writer. 

But then those people would also presume King is a better writer than Dostoevsky and Conrad ... and whether or not "most" people believe this -- why would one want to have this discussion with them? 

(BTW the superiority of those writers, despite their unexciting plots, is not simply a matter of "style" either....)

[Derengard]

It often depends on what you expect of a story. Should it address and be built of deep, fundamental human... stuff, should the narrative suck you in, be immersive and full of variety, should it be something new, should it have a  certain tone and flair, should it coincidide with your worldview... often enough all of it, of course, but it varies greatly in what extent you want something. In general I prefer the immersion, variety and a special tone or flair. The rest would come in automatically in a tolerable way, unless it simply sucks.

That's why I think Baldur's Gate 2 has a great story (though other games like PS:T are better in some respects). Whether you looked at books, examined quests on the sidepath or listened, helped and quarrelled with your party-members, or let yourself be carried along in the main-narrative and nearly any fantasy-environment the setting  offers, and dreamt or learnt of Irenicus' story, it all felt genuine and complete.
Apart from the lore and gameplay I feel hardpressed to pinpoint impressive story-aspects or writing in Dragon Age. I'm not one to be impressed by moral choice systems. It's the story-arcs that such systems can spawn like the twist in KOTOR that might be  impressive, but such a system, or quests with such choices, aren't impressive (or new) writing in itself to me.
I  think there simply wasn't so much to do in Dragon Age, there weren't so many tales told. It felt incomplete, or like a little extract. There were all manner of evocative hints but one didn't really see so much of the world. It didn't really feel "epic". It was a mission where you needed to hurry, and although the gameplay might have forced you to take weeks for completion, it really was just a hurried mission.

Now, I probably didn't play it as much as some of you, so maybe I have missed something great or have a weak impression or be otherwise contaminated by too much complaining.

Edit: Weird formatting error, sorry

Modifié par Derengard, 28 février 2010 - 03:04 .