Do you prefer narrative starts, or 'instant action starts'?

With me, I understand the emphasis on "GO, GO, GO!! I WANT TO KILL STUFF!" There are some games where it's like that. Doom being one. But then again, Doom never really had a story. I guess I prefer the "had a normal life" version of events. It gives me time to breathe, and say, "Okay, WTF is going on here?"

But there are people, to this day, who claim that all storytelling in games is nonsense (they use some rougher language) and they skip it all. I can understand those people, as well. But then again, why are you buying a BioWare game if you think that all story is nonsense?   I mean, and I think I've said this before, we are on the verge of a new kind of storytelling here.   Not just books and movies.  But video games, as well.


I've said it before, and I'll say it again...    Mass Effect 1-3 was better than Star Wars IV - VI.  Even The Empire Strikes Back, which is saying something.


 

For me either way is fine as long as it is well-written.

I definitly prefer Origin Stories. They telling so much more about our role and the world they are living within. They are part of the world, donot falling from heaven and only saving the world just because reasons. The Warden had no own voice outside of gameplay, but I realy was more grabbed by him as person than the Inquisitor. Yes, my own fantasy formed his personality more than ever the game could. We have OUR character, but everyone else are the characters from someone else. We had to handle them with the tools we had got.
The Inquisitor can be righteous, always with a joke on his lips, focused, but he is a empty character scheme. He is like Shepard with less own personality but not as flexible as the Warden. Yes, it is a Variety for Dragon Age after we played a nobody who has gained his status (Warden and Champion). The Cousland and Aeducan lost their status at first. The Inquisitor is with beginning of the game someone that is (in)famouse, but the writing was very bad. And the plot anyway. (a person can only be insane with a dark force(RedLyrium Plot) and Ancient Elven Plot. Everything is explained with the Ancient Elven. And everything we learnd from Codex in DAO and DA2 is suddenly wrong. I killed Genitivi alot, but what Bioware did was dumb. Now I let Genitivi in each playthrough live because Bioware did enough to him)
Back to Inquisitor: We only get some table missions with a little of text.

When people want ActionRPGs or HackNSlays they should play Doom or Diablo. This games want to be that at the beginning. The market do not need games that changing his category in the main line. SpinOffs, yes, but not the main games. Dragon Age wanted to be a modern Baldurs Gate. A plot driven cRPG.

I make it up myself, insofar as BioWare allows that. That's what roleplaying is about.

There's a lot of talk in here about "grounding" the character and making them feel "real". Well, putting aside the fact that "grounded" and "real" are totally arbitrary terms that mean different things to different people, given the fact that the character is supposed to be (at least in part), the player's own creation, making them fit the player's individual definitions of "grounded" and "real" is in fact the player's own job. The motivation and the emotional connections to people and the world around them should come from the player.

People in here have framed the argument in such a way as to say that, because I don't want to spend a lot of time with the character's family and experience their home life, that I am somehow against "good writing". What I am actually doing is standing up for my own beliefs about what good writing is. Namely, I believe that decent writing treats players and readers as if they have half a brain, and trusts them to figure things out on their own. This holds doubly true for a roleplaying game, where I am supposed to be a co-contributor to the story, and TRIPLY true for the world of Dragon Age, which is not remotely original enough for there to be any risk of new players being confused.

Just for the record, I absolutely don't think you are against good writing. I've read many of your posts and that's abundantly clear.

When I first played Dragon Age 2, and the sibling death happened I remember finding myself confused, and unsure what to think. I played a male Rogue Hawke on the first run, and having this Carver person suddenly die in the first few moments of the game honestly made me think "who the hell was that random person who just died?"

I had no emotional connection to Carver because I simply never got the chance to get to know him. I'm not even sure if I knew for certain that he was my brother - that came afterward via exposition from Hawke's grieving mother.

It was only after I'd replayed the game a couple of times I was given the chance to make a connection with Carver and Bethany.

In my first run I didn't even got that the people running with Hawke were her mother and siblings. Until Leandra started with her culpevulization of Hawke letting her little brother die, I thought the Hawkes were a family running away with my Hawke, not her family!

I frankly never cared at all for any of the family members or Hawke at all, tho. Not even later in the game, or in the second run. And is not just the lack of an origin/prologue.

I'm not arguing against context, I am arguing that all stories should start as close to the 'inciting incident' of the plot as possible.

I believe that good writers can provide context while also moving the plot along. I don't advocate for action scenes that don't move the plot forward either.

I don't get emotionally connected to characters *generally speaking*. Especially not in grand, sweeping fantasy epics, because I can't relate to their situation. What draws me into a story is the world (if it's a particularly fantastical and different world), and the plot hook.

When I do get emotionally invested in a character, it's because I find them relatable, or I find their goal relatable/sympathetic. I don't connect to anyone in DAI because I don't relate to the mostly very privileged cast of characters, or sympathise with their stated overall goal of 'restoring order', the 'order' of Thedas sucks. No amount of establishing scenes will ever fix that for me.

The reason that I (mostly) like DA2 is because the game is overall smaller in scope and more focussed on personal struggles. I don't feel particular affection for any of the characters, except maybe Anders, but I relate more to being poor and wanting to be rich, or being oppressed and wanting to fight back, or being hurt and wanting revenge.

As for DA2's opening, not only would I not have shown Hawke and family in Lothering, hefting hay bales or barn dancing or what have you, but I would have cut the entire opening sequence of fleeing from Lothering as well. It serves no particular narrative importance. In the greater scheme of the series, how Hawke got to Kirkwall doesn't really matter, as it turns out.

If there HAS to be a scene establishing 'ordinary life', surely it would've made more sense to show some of the year that Hawke spends working as a mercenary or smuggler.

In a more fantastical story, I might agree that an establishing scene is helpful or even necessary ("Ah yes, another beautiful day in my hometown in the intestines of a space-whale, where we harvest the gut flora and hunt the harmful bacteria that would otherwise cause it to violently shit us out into the void"). I mean, I don't think *I* would need it, because I don't go into fantasy stories looking for a fight, but opt instead to accept the premise fully and all new information as it comes until something conflicts. In the case of Dragon Age, I really don't see the need.

I don't really disagree with much of what you're saying either. I can certainly concede that the parts of Dragon Age's world that I find most interesting are usually tucked in the side content, far away from the main plot.

I'm not opposed to sidequests in general, I would like to clarify. I don't like the way they are implemented in most games currently. But you are, of course, correct that I prefer them to have relevance to the core plot.

Then the game would only be 3 hours instead of 9 hours. In DA2 you would begin in the second Act. No offence, but i would like it more than less time. I want to play it till the next game come.

Hawke's sibling dying in the opening was the biggest narrative failure of the entire game...
The player has zero connection to that character. That was really poor writing. DA2 would have greatly benefited from some kind family scene leading up to this tragic event. Didn't have to be long. A short slice of the family dynamics, already establishing rivalry among the siblings. One quiet scene before it all goes to hell and they start running. 10min. That would have made all the difference imo.

Oddly, I thought the scene with Aveline's husband worked. Maybe because he died slowly? The time it took for him to die was enough to establish their relationship and convey real grief.

But Hawke's sibling died so fast and then there was no time to dwell on the shock either. It was a really poor rushed opening to a game that then proceeded to take the whole first act to establish the world in a long ass drawn out quasi prologue. Very odd pacing...

I've loved ordinary life prologues since Ocarina Of Time at the age of 12. That game (and many JRPGs that followed) left such a lasting impression on me as a kid that I still get all warm and fuzzy inside when a game starts in a sleepy little village. I just think it's good storytelling.
Of course it's not the only good way to start a narrative. A lot of narratives skilfully use a mysterious opening to hook players. Who's the hero, what's their secret? What's wrong with the world?

I guess it depends on the focus too. Is the protagonist's backstory part of the central mystery or not? Does it matter where the hero came from? DA2 was a family story at heart, so skipping a nice family scene to establish their dynamic was a mistake imo.
DAO's origin stories served as world exposition as much as giving the hero a life prior to the central plot. That was great!

DAI tried to copy the Skyrim opening and I felt meh about it. I never really grew attached to the inquisitor, not sure if the lack of a proper backstory and pre-established relationships is to blame or the rather boring role-playing options. I could try to reason that the inquisitor never felt like a real person living in this world because they more or less dropped out of the sky and even the eventual revelation what happened couldn't change that, but maybe I'm just biased...