Time to catch up on all this, a nice wall of text for you all.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Yeah, maybe half way into Act 2 I pretty much stopped reading the paraphrases and just went with the icons. Honestly, my 1st Hawke went with the diplomatic response most of the time, not because I necessarily wanted to but since its the safe choice where you know Hawke won't say something totally stupid or offensive.
[/quote]
Yeah, I just prefer the way its handled in DA:O or Fallout, you're restricted to whatever tone the writers intended but it's still a little ambiguous, in that you can put your own spin on it within limits. I found all too often that none of the tones really fit what I wanted to say and it was all a guessing game regardless so you stop caring after a point regardless.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
But I think its safe to say the romances were easily BioWare's weakest in a long time. At least the female ones don't even come close to Leliana or Morrigan, IMO.
[/quote]
I expected as much but I didn't think the disparity would be quite as great as it is (at least in my mind.) I suppose they're fitting with the rest of the game, in that they're all within the average-good range, with occasional moments that shine.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
I think the only thing thats supposed to happen after Merrill's Act 3 quest is that you have one last convo with her back at her home. But the bug I had was that that last conversation was actually the first one that triggered in Act 3. But yeah, its odd how since you can't freely speak to the companions, once you do their personal quests they just totally clam up.
[/quote]
Companion lockdown is pretty damning in my eyes, and that especially underlines part of the reason why the companions are weaker - the throwaway one line responses when clicked just permeates the idea that any relationship building is useless outside of cutscenes. I think even ME2 did it better than DA2 when interacting with companions in home base. The DA2 companions were the equivalents of Zaeed/Kasumi when it came to interaction, in fact they probably had more ambient comments to make overall. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/angry.png[/smilie]
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
I don't think so- considering that the end of the game with the static cutscene has Cassandra saying the Warden is "gone" no matter what. But apparently DA2 doesn't read any flags from Witch Hunt, so I've got to think that Alistair reference is a continuity oversight on BioWare's part. It just doesn't make sense for the Warden to have come back in year 7 for a bit then disappear again at the end?
[/quote]
Yeah, I'm thinking it's an oversight, it's also a nice way to indirectly anger Morri-fans without actually doing anything with the romance flags
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
If anything, combined with your limited interactions with the companions, the time jumps made the romances feel even more forced and odd. It just creates a huge disconnect from the player and PC. Like you mentioned, Isabela disappears for supposedly a couple years, yet as the player you've seen her not 5 minutes ago. The framed narrative really did not add anything to the game and if anything made the whole thing more disjointed than it needed to be. There really is no reason it couldn't have taken place over maybe 3 years and not lost anything in the process.
[/quote]
I agree completely. Look at how Aveline's romance progresses while Hawke's is in apparent stasis during these gap year periods. It felt to me that the framed narrative was a handy device to enable BW to crank out DA2 in record time, ranging from asset reuse to the supposed additional depth it was supposed to bring to the table. On a side note though, at least they didn't overuse the exaggerated narrative component, it was only used well once though - Varric's one man siege. Events like revisiting the fade look to me like they were scaled back from what was originally envisioned, I remember Gaider talked about how the Fade would look different this time, what we got looked pretty damn generic.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Its very linear and quite frankly boring, having to interact with the companions only when they give you the ok and guessing what Hawke is going to say based on the wheel. I find it funny how so many people are liking Hawke with a voice and yet in the next breath they bemoan the lack of more companion interaction and so forth. Maybe its not entirely responsible, but certainly having a voiced PC is going to eat into your budget a good deal and add in the cinematic cutscene everything mentality and it you can forget having the supposedly terrible "talking heads" conversations. I don't know about you, but generally when I'm talking with someone, I'm not having an out of body experience with annoying camera angles and shaky cam- I'm probably just looking at the person!
[/quote]
I think the PC VO likely held back how much companion dialogue was possible to include when you consider the possible tones for each selectable option and also the dialogue Hawke initiates on his/her own. Sacrificing that gives much more freedom for companion interactions. I think I noted about three single events / one-liners where I felt the voiced PC really added to the experience (and they were good moments) but to think of the possible content that was never to be because of this approach I don't think it was worth it. I vastly prefer the approaches of New Vegas and DA:O, allowing you to project yourself into the role; you're the badass and it's "you" interacting with the characters.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Or even if you had any discussion with any of the Wardens you ran across,
they could have dropped a quick line on how the Hero of Ferelden had been rumored to have disppeared with some Apostate witch. So many opportunities to do something with that and nothing- much like Awakening.
[/quote]
^This. The other LI candidates were all acknowledged but inexplicably there's not even a tiny overheard conversation / line detailing the possible whereabouts of Morrigan romancing wardens.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Right- and having every interaction some big cinematic cutscene just seems like a tremendous waste. I think there was one scene with Merrill which amounted to Hawke going in saying hello, sitting down at a table, the camera swirls around a bit, Merrill says he's a good friend and thats it. Was all that necessary? Did I really need that to go down as a quest in my journal? Couldn't we have just done that when I was travelling on the road with Merrill? Having every interaction a cutscene just cheapens the impact of a cutscene when they're actually called for. And it just adds another layer of disconnect between the player and the PC and the NPC.
[/quote]
It is a waste and a direct copy and paste from Mass Effect with regards to companion interaction, a game which was notably worse than Origins in that regard. Quite why they decided to further reduce these scenes into "quests" baffles me, you switch off from the whole thing after a while as it becomes Fable 3-esque
follow the golden trail to win. It's taking the "we don't want to make content x% won't see" way too far by taking the player's hand and dragging them to every possible event and then when you reach the event, your reward is to sit and there and watch a cutscene play out that you barely have any involvement in.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
DA3 will probably take place in Antiva or something. But they'll toss Flemeth in there just because.
[/quote]
Yep, and the Morri thread called it first.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Yeah, I think its in part because Aveline and Varric seem to actually respond and react to Hawke as a friend and person. Most of the other companions seem to only deal with Hawke and lecture Hawke on ideology or they just end up talking at Hawke but not really reacting to what Hawke is saying or doing. And the romances feel terribly tacked on, unlike Origins where they would color your future interactions with that companion. I wonder if making every LI, bisexual sort of sapped away resources in that sense to make them one size fits all regardless of gender.[/quote]
I think part of it is the wheel and its intent icons, it's like a neon sign "Zomg, click here 4 teh romance", whereas before they were nestled away in conversations, you had to work for them and your progression towards them was natural. Varric and Aveline are better in that regard as romance isn't a possibility and you don't feel you're "playing a game" as much as you do with the LI companions, things like the heart icon (and maybe even the friendship/approval values) should be hidden away, however doing that presents new challenges if you have paraphrases and everyone's bisexual. Anyway, as you say, those two don't have an agenda like say Anders, who seems intent on convincing you (and every other party member) that templars/Circle etc need to be taken down at every opportunity. Regardless, the two LIs that I saw didn't particularly add a great deal to the game, there was a nice tie in with Isabela/Qunari but I don't feel that was capitalised upon.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
I think it just goes deeper into characterization of the companions overall, as you can't interact with them freely, you can't have any more mundane chats to discover their backstory, you can't find out little quirks in their personality via gifts, and so on. Really, I missed the gifts- I mean, you have the couple gifts to give, but again, they turn into cutscene quests and it spoonfeeds who you need to give the gift to. Whereas it was nice to discover Morrigan's affection for shiny baubles via talking to her and getting the golden mirror story. None of the characters in DA2 really had that sort of extra dimension that the Origins companions did.
[/quote]
I wasn't a fan of the gifts (except plot related items) as they boosted approval too much. I liked the idea of them, just the gain to approval wasn't well thought out. I do dislike how the gift giving in DA2 has now been amalgamated into a cutscene though, another freedom removed as I see it. They've removed too much as I see it and it's interesting that many even outside the BSN have noted the very same issue.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
I'd agree- I liked ME2. Its a great game. The issue is that it seems, at least from the outside looking in, that ME is BioWare's SacredCow and well, damn, since ME did it why not do that in DA or TOR? And that mentality of making DA into Mass Effect: Fantasy Edition is so incredibly stupid. They can say they're not doing it all they want- the usual remarks from devs that "Oh, DA2 isn't like ME- its not a third person cover based shooter! *chuckle chuckle*" make me want to facepalm hard.
[/quote]
Precisely, the evidence is right in front of us now and they've borrowed heavily from ME, especially in terms of presentation and critically at least, the results are an inferior experience.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
But it would be nice if they kept their franchises unique. Have ME be your cinematic Baby's FIrst Action RPG, catered to the consoles. [/quote]
^This. Why is it so difficult to grasp the long term successes such an approach would provide. ME serves as an entry point to lite-RPG for newcomers to the genre. Over time, the inclusion of rpg elements in that game and even your supposed RPGs like COD condition gamers to become more adept and used to the systems and conventions, ultimately seeking a more complex, deeper experience, at which point they transition to the more traditional titles. Evidently EA's marketing knows better.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
[quote]Terra_Ex wrote...
But anyway, you can't force people to like rpgs anyway so who knows what they're aimng for with all the streamlining,
it's reached the point where it insults the intelligence of the existing and potential playerbase and it's good to note that many reviews have criticised some of the design decisions.[/quote]
I was just reading one review of the PC version that said almost that exact thing. From
Worth Playing (they gave it a 60/100 for PC):
[quote]
It isn't so much consolitis that consigned the sequel to the pit of disappointment for me, nor is it crying over PC-flavored milk because it doesn't try to harness what the platform is capable of doing.
Instead, the wholesale changes reflect a deeper problem in assuming that your audience isn't as smart as it was to enjoy the first game. It
makes the only answer that of dumbing down the sharp edges in an effort to appeal to a wider audience.Change by itself isn't a bad thing, but there is a thin line between streamlining a game to make it more playable — e.g., the interface, improvements to inventory handling, party management or sharpening the underlying technology —
and in making changes that simply insult your audience's intelligence. This is the same audience — on both consoles and PCs — that relished learning how
Origin's combat system worked, pored over each skill tree in planning their characters, and replayed it over and over again. It wasn't perfect, but at the same time, it didn't scare enough people away to make it seem like a tragic mistake.[/quote]
[/quote]
Well there you go. Take a look at what happened with the Wii (which I maintain, the primary focus was to usher in a new stream of gamers, to hook the proverbial masses so they could branch out later) - sadly, the hardcore gamers who chose Nintendo's platform got pretty p***ed off with the stream of casual titles and complete lack of traditional games and they end up going elsewhere for their fix. Likewise, if you annoy a chunk of your audience making changes, expect a backlash especially if the offended segment's predictions turn out to be well-founded.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Some other good reviews/critiques that bring up good points on DA2:
Worth Playing- console reviewGame Informer's PC reviewRock, Paper, Shotgun's Review of the 1st 8 hoursCHUD's critique of DA2's "Bizarre design decisions"Richard Cobbett's look at the lack of internal consistency in DA2's worldI really like the last article -- seriously, BG2 had the Cowled Wizards enforcing the no magic laws in Athkatla. So why can you rain firey death from above anywhere, in broad daylight, in front of Templars, in Kirkwall with no consequences? Ugh.
[/quote]
I read that a few days back and definitely agree with the issues raised. When Imoen is taken away immediately after Irenicus's dungeon you're wondering whether these same spellcasting restrictions would be applied to you. (Although back then we had gloriously large instruction manuals detailing every aspect of the game) Pleasingly it was, as soon as you start casting in an open environment your pals from the Cowled Wizards teleport in. A great game mechanic, particularly effective in the first playthrough (I played a sorceror) and it acheived exactly what it set out to do. I look at the previews/reviews for DA2 who all push how Kirkwall is supposed to be very harsh on the mages yet any sense of believability is quashed when Hawke uses the Firestorm spell... [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/pinched.png[/smilie] Had they implemented say a decent crowd scattering system, where any violence caused the non-essential NPCs to bolt to the nearest exit, with templars surging in from all sides it'd be far more believable. The game is so combat-focused I'm surprised they didn't do it.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Just this recycled, dismissive line that irritates me everytime I hear it:
[quote]
And so, as a team that I am quite frankly honored to work alongside turned their sights to Dragon Age II, one thing stood out to us: we didn't want to make the sequel everyone expected. Jokingly, we used to pitch that sequel as "two archdemons stapled together to lead a super Blight!" Perhaps you can see why we wanted something different. [/quote]
Now I'm fine with them wanting to do something different, so long as its good. The story of DA2 just isn't very good.
The whole shtick of not wanting to do what people expected is stupid IMO. Some of the best sequels are when the series goes in exactly the direction you thought it should/could, but even then, exceeds your expectations. DA2 seems intent on being different for the sake of being different and thats just as bad as doing the same old, same old.
[/quote]
Oh, that one. Yeah, the idea of a sequel is it's meant to be an improvement, in all aspects. DA2 unfortunately stumbles and falls in several key areas. And of course, often it is a sound move to actually make the
sequel everyone expected as opposed to one that scores lower across the board because you know, it enriches and strengthens the franchise rather than permeating an internet wide disapproval of many of the sequel's revisions. It could, and most likely is, PR spin to explain away the restructuring of the franchise to suit rapid iterative sequels laden with DLC, that's my take on it anyway.
On a related topic, I've heard mention on the DA2 boards that Laidlaw apparently didn't want an import feature in DA2, apparently to distance it from Origins but I've not been able to source a quote of anything to that effect. Not sure as to the validity of this statement, does it have any grounding/have you seen anything to this effect or has someone been twisting his words?
[quote]Esbatty wrote...
To me just like ME1 plays rather differently than ME2, DAO plays different from DA2. I loved ME1, awesome story - it felt very epic but my Shepards felt very generic. ME2 is loved for different reasons, awesome characters - not as Epic as ME1 but my Shepards were more animated and had personality.
[/quote]
In terms of Shepard, ME1 & 2 felt mostly identical to me with the exception of the interrupt system, I didn't notice any great departure in how Shepard interacted with the world around him/her.
[quote]Esbatty wrote...
And I find it very similar with how I digested the Dragon Age games. Origins, a single epic story and a couple of awesome characters, but my Wardens felt kind of static. DA2, a handful of cool stories and most of the characters are fantastic, and my Hawkes were defintely more animated.
[/quote]
That's going to depend on the player, to me, watching a defined PC act something out in a particular tone based on a loose selection I made isn't roleplaying and it simply distances me from the player character, and I say this having played a huge number of Wrpgs + Jrpgs. ME & DA2 let me watch a story rather than be a true part of it and that is
it's key failing in my eyes. I think this problem is magnified for me because DA2 is substituting in a different system than what engaged me in DA:O in the first place.
It depends on how able/willing you are to project yourself into the role of the silent PC really, you have to be willing and able to give something of yourself to game for want of a better term. If what you're looking for is the game to spell out everything for you visually on screen, ie: a passive experience, then a more defined PC will fit the bill. Both are perfectly acceptable depending on the game in question yet the enduring classics imo require the player to make the effort to immerse themself.
[quote]Esbatty wrote...
Dragon Age 2 gives me a non-epic story made up of multiple different stories that are loosely interconnected with a new set of interesting characters that really grow on me. Thats why I dig DA2. Its new, it further explores parts of Thedas I hadn't seen before, and has small ties to the original game. I may not have my Wardens back but I realize I wasn't as attached to them as I thought I was. Who I am attached to were my warden's companions.
Seeing Zevran again being, well... himself, was great. I know I wasn't playing my Warden but seeing him being cunning and smarmy and flirty and dirty was alot of fun if it was just one mission. Seeing Leliana be the Chantry's Emma Peel was very cool, she took her bardic skills and is using them to help change the world, I felt proud of her. Flemeth making cracks about Morrigan just made me miss Morrigan more, while seeing Alistair as both the sarcastic King and
Drunken Traitor was kind of heartbreaking 'cause he wasn't doing what he loved (Never could figure out how to keep him as a Warden).
And Morri and Alistair were the ones I dug the most from DAO. Here in Dragon Age 2, just like Alistair and Morrigan I automatically took to Varric and Aveline. I couldn't romance them with any of my Hawkes but they didn't need it for me to get wrapped up in their shenanigans. In fact I could get up in ALL MY COMPANIONS SHENANIGANS without any kind of flirting or sexy good times. This, and I think this alone, helps (at least for me) balance out the lack of an entirely cohesive narrative.
All I can say now is, I'm not afraid to see Morrigan come back. She is not my character. Whatever they do to her is their choice, I just want to see what they have planned for her. She is the entire reason I even decided to pick up Dragon Age Origins to begin with (quick story: saw a more than risque picture on a website, said "thats hot", found DA was made by the makers of the ME series, picked it with a quickness followedby Awakening a couple weeks later, then all the available DLC a month after that.)
To me Morrigan is Dragon Age, her story is the most important to me, I don't need my Warden to be attached to hip (although that'd be a sexy sexy idea) for her story to continue. And now I am rambling...
[/quote]
Regarding cameos, recurring characters, etc - BioWare was the one claiming "no-canon, your choices matter." If a few throwaway dialogue references qualify as sufficient continuity then I'm sure Dragon Age won't disappoint (Not saying you're that kind of gamer, Esbatty, just a general comment on the issue). I personally like strong duos, like the warden/morri pair and seeing that kind of reactivity across the games is infinitely more satisfying than, "the Warden is off shopping atm" or a similar connotation. To me, Morrigan's story was elevated because her story, romance, friendship and goals all entwine with DA:O'score plot and a larger plotline involving the GWs, Morrigan, Flemeth & the Blight. To conclude it to the exclusion of the PC that was so heavily involved in these events (who has possibly commited to travelling with her) cannot fail to disappoint. Though Avernus's letters in DA2 and Gaider's scattered comments about the net regarding the GWs in general and the playable warden in particular leads me to believe there's more to come on that thread, which just happens to be tied to Morrigan/Flemeth anew via the WH warning.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
Yes, you can persuade people. It's just that this time you won't see a "persuade" or "intimidate" being written in from of you sentence. Heck, you can even have someone like Aveline intimidate them for you or have Varric persuade them or lie.
[/quote]
Not really, there's no real measure of Hawke's ability to influence, outside of Hawke being able to influence companions via the friend/rival mechanic, the coercion skills from DA:O are gone and thus Hawke doesn't have the same flexibility to handle situations as we did before. As Brock stated, the coercion mechanic has simply become the "defer to companion" option.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
And Hawke won't react in the case you mentioned until you actualy tell him how to react. You have the option of telling Isabela that you don't want her to have sex with Zevran and she'll say "Fine. But I expect you to make it up to me later".[/quote]
Maybe you did Shiori, the option sure as hell didn't come up when I played. Could be a bug I suppose (since I definitely had full friendship, gave her both gifts & triggered all conversations that came up). Since they've locked down the dialogues on an act by act basis, there should be more room for variations in the scenes they speak in, using identical dialogue for that scene after she's supposed be undergoing some sort of shift/revaluation from her final romance dialogue is still lazy imo.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
The romances themselves weren't weak imo. True, Morrigan romance was better than anything in DA2, but Isabela and Merrill also had great romances. Isabela in particualr was fun for me. It's nice to see her deal with her feelings in the game itself and not after she runs away only to reappear for 2-3 minutes in a DLC and admit to loving my Hawke.
[/quote]
Really Shiori, Morrigan doesn't say/do that so don't misrepresent what's there. Anyway, I disagree here, neither Isabela's nor Merrill's did anything for me or had a flicker of the depth we saw in the Origins companions. And I'm not sure the 2-3 minute resolution is any worse than, 'oh hawke, I think I love you, be back in five when I'm done f***ing Zevran' level of reactivity. Considering this takes place within the very same act and in my case immediately after the final Isabela romance conversation, it was poorly handled if they were striving for a developing character with Isabela.
Like Aveline's romance - there was logical consistency there as it actually developed over the years, when standing that up against others like Isabela's they fall flat. It literally seems like the writers decided to write her out for that period and then bring her back. About the only reference I got to some progression there was an offhand comment in the estate referencing some mystery adventure they supposedly went on. The point being, considering Hawke is with these LI's for such an extended period, their relationship should progress and be much deeper than what it is.
Additionally, this also actually kinda contradicts a point you're making later regarding events/development occurring off-screen over a period of time. Morrigan is more successful than Isabela in this regard as (while she's off pursuing her own agenda) we see a reflection of her feelings in DA:O's epilogue, there's scope for possible romantic inference when you tell Ariane that "you feel her sometimes", which ties in with Morrigan's comment regarding the ring when you meet her again.
So again, Morrigan's acceptance of the warden in WH is indicative of development/personal reflection over a period of time whilst still being true to her facade of not betraying her true feelings unless pressed, Isabela didn't seem to have undergone much change during her periods of absence and compared with Morrigan there was a lack of depth when broaching many topics.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
I always took that line as Alisatir believing that the Warden will come back. He probably doesn't even know that you found Morrigan and followed her through the Eluvian.[/quote]
I don't think the line reads like that at all tbh, going by the tone it was delivered in it sounds like Alistair knows exactly where the warden is and when he/she will be returning. Act 3 took place some time after the events of WH so I'm sure Alistair should have been made aware of what happened in WH by that time.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
I honestly fail to see the problem here. She, and every other companion, have their own lives and don't constantly follow you around. Sure, she could have gone on a rant about whatever it was she did during that time, but would that have made it any better?[/quote]
The onus isn't on the player to postulate the best method for handling this, BioWare made a big thing about the story happening over a decade, made lofty claims as to how the romances develop more realistically over a lengthier period yet, as a number of people have pointed out, it could probably have been condensed into a much smaller period. The city doesn't change, the companions don't progress as much as I'd have liked, what function did it really serve apart from to artificially propel the player into the next plot point?
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
Maybe it's me, but I found Hawke's facial animations to be a hell of a lot better than Shepard's. And believe it or not there wasn't a "lack of companion interaction". In DA:O you could basicaly hear 50% or more of their dialogue the first time you talked to them in camp, provided you raised their approval properly and had enough gifts at hand. After that you're stuck with nothing to talk about for more than half the game.[/quote]
Well for me, and apparently others as well it certainly felt like there was a lack of interaction, or at least the way it was presented was less fulfilling than what we had before. Granted, the ability to exhaust dialogue quickly in Origins was certainly an issue (and limiting dialogue on an overall game progression basis is a good thing), a game design issue tbh and one that could have been easily remedied by anchoring the dialogue to major plot quest completion. As it stands, an intelligent player will quickly notice this failing and should seek to balance out their interactions over the course of the game. Personally I spaced out my interactions between quests and the whole thing worked perfectly fine. In Origins, there were many nuances to the dialogue and responses, I felt you really got to dig down into the companion's history, motivations, etc. In my eyes, this is sorely lacking in DA2.
As Brock touched upon earlier, making "quests" out of companion interactions is destroying any notion of emergent gameplay that the spur of the moment companion interactions in Origins afforded you. No longer can you steal a kiss from your LI in a quiet corner of the city, no longer can you ask Leliana what she knows about the location you're exploring - the freedom to interact freely has been stripped and what little is there in the cutscenes feels incredible scripted due to its presentation. There's no opportunity for even the little details like companion interjection when kissing a LI outside of camp anymore since they're essentially bots until you hit the next scripted event. It's a shadow of its former self.
Just as with Shepard- I barely felt there was a connection between him and his crew as he merely pops in to their quarters for a quick chat (which involved him leaning against a wall, etc) and outside of those scripted sequences there was little to no accounting for the relationships Shepard had made with his team. The same is true of DA2 (not to the same extent as ME, but it is still apparent), and is underlined by the Awakening style pop up conversations while out and about alongside the issues I noted above.
On gifts: I personally disliked DA:O's gift system, aside from the plot related gifts and think it should have been refined/removed since it can skew the approval levels far too early, but that's a game design issue.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
And it also helps when your companions actualy talk about something interesting, rather than rant about pointless crap, like Oghren would in Origins.
So, yes. Maybe there is less conversation overall, but I feel the quality was much better than it was in Origins.
[/quote]
I thought the dialogue in DA2 was overall less consistent in its quality in this outing, maybe the increase in the writing team's size has produced differing styles, I don't know... The notion that you can only talk about "interesting things" as you put it merely reinforces the point Brock made earlier regarding why Aveline & Varric are successful as companions yet the rest spout ideologies and don't really interact with Hawke as well as the aforementioned pair, it's the small, less obvious things as well as the big stuff that makes something special and I think that's been forgotten when BioWare attempted to distil the "essence" of Dragon Age for DA2's departure. Weaker companions has been quite a common criticism of DA2 based on what I've seen across the net and discussions with friends so I wouldn't agree that the quality was better by any measure.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
That scene was about you helping her feel accepted and showing she isn't all alone in Kirkwall. It was more about understanding How Merrill feels suddenly being forced to leave behind everything she knew and having to live in a strange city filled with people who'd hate her for being an elf and a mage. Sure, it didn't add new info but it did allow you to understand how Merrill feels.
[/quote]
The point being made though was that all the bells and whistles are there to make up for a lack of content/strong dialogue. Having every interaction so deeply entrenched in animation-heavy presentation (Hawke enters, moves to chair, sits, waits to speak, rinse repeat) ends up making me roll my eyes - it becomes like Metal Gear Solid all over again where every few steps initiates an over-long cutscene, which also touches on the question of whether BioWare really wants to make games or movies. As I stated earlier, the sense of freedom is removed from the player at a very basic level as soon as a new companion interaction is marked in the journal and map as a big shiny arrow - it underlines that you're playing a game and you're being railroaded/ushered from event to event. Contrast with say, Morrigan's discussions about leaving the Wilds, all completely optional and can be triggered at your discretion, they feel far less forced on you (and thereby more player-driven) due to lack of a quest market and play to the notion of player discovery.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
If anything it felt a lot more real and believeable to me than have everyone stand around a campfire like golems waiting to be activated.
[/quote]
Funny, that's exactly how the companions in DA2 feel to me outside of cutscenes, their random comments akin to a teddy bear squeaker. It'd be perfectly justified to slate Origins if Dragon Age 2 did it any better yet it doesn't. Companions merely sit in the designated positions in Kirkwall doing... nothing (that LIs can live with you is interesting though, lack of interaction notwithstanding). There's no realisation of the companions having lives, they don't have full cycles of actions to perform/locations to visit each day like in titles such as Fallout/Radiata Stories, they just sit there. Had they included mechanics such as a dynamic day / night system with maybe Aveline patrolling at night rather than sitting in the guardhouse all day would have helped strengthen the idea of a living, breathing city, as it stands though, the whole thing is far from believable. The problems begin with the lack of believability of the city itself as noted in the excellent articles Brock linked previously, and that's even before we consider the failings of the companions. Origins neatly sidesteps this potential landmine as far as companions are concerned simply through its use of the campsite.
[quote]Master Shiori wrote...
This feature of everyone being their own person is something I'd love to see in future games.
[/quote]
Other games have already done it far more effectively.
Modifié par Terra_Ex, 24 mars 2011 - 05:39 .
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DA 2 is generally one of the most linear games i ever played. Most choices are fake, and things happen anyway with just a little variation. My prime example is Orsino and his outburst in act 3 when you side with the mages, makes zero sense here as there is no but his allies around who just defeated the 1st wave.
I swear, Laidlaw hates Origins.
