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Post by smilesja on Dec 4, 2020 18:39:20 GMT
Its not like dialogue choices did anything under the old leadership. Look at Andromeda and how much those different choices did. I mean it was pretty obvious that the original dialogue choices were being phased starting with Mass Effect 1.
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Post by colfoley on Dec 4, 2020 18:41:16 GMT
Its not like dialogue choices did anything under the old leadership. Look at Andromeda and how much those different choices did. a lot?
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Post by midnight tea on Dec 4, 2020 18:50:57 GMT
Losing Mark is definitely a blow, but hell...23 years is a long time at one company. Can't really blame him for wanting to see what else is out there. When there was a rash of people leaving Bioware some time ago, I did say that Mark Darrah may leave sooner than later given both his seniority, and the fact that life in his position means sooner or later he may have to take a break or retire, just for health reasons alone (+ we have pandemic now which has verified and changed lot of things. Trust me, I know.). Anyway - if people think they have just taken their toys and left suddenly, I think they are likely quite mistaken. And if they have left appropriate successors and plans in place, I'm not worried.
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Post by eternalambiguity on Dec 4, 2020 18:54:05 GMT
Did she explicitly say "Shadow of Morder is what RPGs should look like"? Because if not this take is retarded. Right now I'm working on a game that's kind of a top-down-shooter-with-slight-horror-elements type thing. I have plans for a visual novel with lots of choices (you decide whether or not to kill a bunch of different people, which decides if you can get the true ending), an RPG, a survival/adventure game, a DMC style hack n slash, and a game I'm calling "Sonic Adventure 3."
Developers are capable of working on many different types of projects, and seeing the needs of each differently.
I read an interview with her back around 2014-2015 (don't ask me to find it back) and what I got from it is that she sees RPGs as "adventure games with levels". Note that I mean character levels here. I mentioned Shadow of Mordor to give an example of what she meant by it. Saying that, she isn't really going off the design trend BioWare has been going since ME2/ME3. And she's not a developer, she's the EA executive that approve what gets and doesn't get made. If there was conflict between BioWare heads and EA over game design, she was the EA side of the conflict. It's possible I got it all wrong and she has been trying to push them to go back to pre-ME2 design and it was the people at the top of BioWare who were into auto-dialogues and streamlining.
Press X to doubt.
Edit: googling "Samantha Ryan interview 2014" returns a porn star.
Its not like dialogue choices did anything under the old leadership. Look at Andromeda and how much those different choices did. I mean it was pretty obvious that the original dialogue choices were being phased starting with Mass Effect 1. Pretty much this, ME1's dialogue choices frequently felt like the same thing repeated. I personally found ME2's more differentiated.
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Post by linksocarina on Dec 4, 2020 19:20:04 GMT
Well, Christian has finally made a post about all of this. For what it is worth.
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Post by theascendent on Dec 4, 2020 19:35:43 GMT
Sad that they are leaving. I wish them all the best whatever they do. Thanks for all the memories and years of fun. And as for Bioware(if that is indeed your real name), I am watching you.
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Post by azarhal on Dec 4, 2020 19:37:33 GMT
Well, Christian has finally made a post about all of this. For what it is worth. Going by his twitter, he likes to interact with people and he isn't a troll like Mark. I also checked his game credit. He is all over the place over the last 20 years: game design (level and gameplay), programming, audio direction, support services (tech side), production and even QA.
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Post by linksocarina on Dec 4, 2020 20:33:04 GMT
Well, Christian has finally made a post about all of this. For what it is worth. Going by his twitter, he likes to interact with people and he isn't a troll like Mark. I also checked his game credit. He is all over the place over the last 20 years: game design (level and gameplay), programming, audio direction, support services (tech side), production and even QA. He certainly is qualified for a position.
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Post by Adia on Dec 5, 2020 12:27:10 GMT
I read an interview with her back around 2014-2015 (don't ask me to find it back) and what I got from it is that she sees RPGs as "adventure games with levels". Note that I mean character levels here. I mentioned Shadow of Mordor to give an example of what she meant by it. Saying that, she isn't really going off the design trend BioWare has been going since ME2/ME3. And she's not a developer, she's the EA executive that approve what gets and doesn't get made. If there was conflict between BioWare heads and EA over game design, she was the EA side of the conflict. It's possible I got it all wrong and she has been trying to push them to go back to pre-ME2 design and it was the people at the top of BioWare who were into auto-dialogues and streamlining. That is what I find funny about the people concerned about dialogue choices. BioWare under the people they now claim were important and influential themselves were hurting dialogue by adding auto-dialogue or removing the neutral comment. We have no idea what is going to happen under another person for their personal opinion on something doesn't automatically mean its going to disappear especially when there are going to be plenty of BioWare employees that can educate her. I mean it's not really fair, they had to cut those because of deadlines (Andromeda, Anthem, ME3, all rushed products). If it was up to them they wouldn't cut them, but at the end of the day you got to make same tough decisions in order to manage resources and make sure you got the product in time. But I do agree with you. Some of the people that left Bioware were upper management, and upper management was not great. One thing I do hate to see is people saying "Bioware of old doesn't exist, those people are gone" yet they're the same people who are praising CD Projekt Red, and are unware of how many developers CDPR lost over the years, so much that switching developers became the studio's culture, as reported by Yong Yea. That double standard needs to go.
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Post by Unicephalon 40-D on Dec 5, 2020 12:35:39 GMT
That is what I find funny about the people concerned about dialogue choices. BioWare under the people they now claim were important and influential themselves were hurting dialogue by adding auto-dialogue or removing the neutral comment. We have no idea what is going to happen under another person for their personal opinion on something doesn't automatically mean its going to disappear especially when there are going to be plenty of BioWare employees that can educate her. I mean it's not really fair, they had to cut those because of deadlines (Andromeda, Anthem, ME3, all rushed products). If it was up to them they wouldn't cut them, but at the end of the day you got to make same tough decisions in order to manage resources and make sure you got the product in time. But I do agree with you. Some of the people that left Bioware were upper management, and upper management was not great. One thing I do hate to see is people saying "Bioware of old doesn't exist, those people are gone" yet they're the same people who are praising CD Projekt Red, and are unware of how many developers CDPR lost over the years, so much that switching developers became the studio's culture, as reported by Yong Yea. That double standard needs to go. Also two people dont make a game. Its a combination of many, many people interacting together. Moving around the studios is quite normal in gaming industry especially after release or planning (depending) phases have been done. A new challenge for some people, I like to spend time in good places with good people instead
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Post by Sanunes on Dec 5, 2020 13:06:53 GMT
That is what I find funny about the people concerned about dialogue choices. BioWare under the people they now claim were important and influential themselves were hurting dialogue by adding auto-dialogue or removing the neutral comment. We have no idea what is going to happen under another person for their personal opinion on something doesn't automatically mean its going to disappear especially when there are going to be plenty of BioWare employees that can educate her. I mean it's not really fair, they had to cut those because of deadlines (Andromeda, Anthem, ME3, all rushed products). If it was up to them they wouldn't cut them, but at the end of the day you got to make same tough decisions in order to manage resources and make sure you got the product in time. But I do agree with you. Some of the people that left Bioware were upper management, and upper management was not great. One thing I do hate to see is people saying "Bioware of old doesn't exist, those people are gone" yet they're the same people who are praising CD Projekt Red, and are unware of how many developers CDPR lost over the years, so much that switching developers became the studio's culture, as reported by Yong Yea. That double standard needs to go. That is kind of of the point I was aiming for. My response is directly aimed at the people that were saying that the things they liked about BioWare games is automatically going to be altered or removed because this new person at the top considers something different then they do as a RPG. While at the same time the people who worked at BioWare for years such as the two people that are leaving made changes to the how the dialogue system themselves and plenty of those changes were heavily criticized. My opinion is that the two people that lead BioWare after the Doctors left with Casey Hudson and Aayrn Flynn were put into a position they weren't prepared for or something that wasn't a good fit for them and the reason why they got it was because they were BioWare employees. I think BioWare needs leadership that has the experience and skill pool to lead a company that is given millions of dollars for a project. This isn't a knock against those two people either, I just think not all people can fit into a those kind of positions especially without experience doing the job on a smaller scale. I agree, people like to point out every departure at BioWare. At the same time at all major gaming companies there is a turnover. BioWare hasn't had major turnover over the years and over the last few people have moved on. At the same time I think its because people have become stagnant at BioWare for there is nowhere else to go but out. Along with the industry as a whole having long tern developers go out and start indie studios. CDPR has had that, but they also have a turnover churn because of their working conditions. Its has been reported that 80% of the people that worked on The Witcher 2 left the studio before The Witcher 3 was released and with Cyberpunk one of the reasons why the game took at long as it did was that they had a constant stream of new employees because people were leaving the studio.
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Post by river82 on Dec 5, 2020 13:11:45 GMT
Its has been reported that 80% of the people that worked on The Witcher 2 left the studio before The Witcher 3 was released Wasn't that Naught Dog Studios?
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Post by Sanunes on Dec 5, 2020 13:24:27 GMT
Its has been reported that 80% of the people that worked on The Witcher 2 left the studio before The Witcher 3 was released Wasn't that Naught Dog Studios? I am not sure of the number at Naughty Dog, but there was an exodus after the changes when Amy Hennig left.
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Post by SirSourpuss on Dec 5, 2020 15:51:46 GMT
While at the same time the people who worked at BioWare for years such as the two people that are leaving made changes to the how the dialogue system themselves and plenty of those changes were heavily criticized. That's not exactly it. Remember going from ME1 to ME2 the features that were criticized and cut from the games? Imagine if the branching storylines have been the most criticized aspect of your games in the past 10 years, or how they influence the quality of your games going forward. The tweet from Mark Darrah about deliberately avoiding having characters return, because of multiple possible states, shows a lot of things that people have had a problem with Bioware games and the expendable nature of all these characters. It doesn't mean that dialogue options will disappear completely, but the dialogue choices and character potential will be downgraded, for a more streamlined and contained narrative. Which basically results in less choice than most other RPGs out there, while also not guaranteeing a higher writing standard. Like, imagine being streamlined in ME into only romancing Liara, across all games, not getting a saying on Virmire, not getting a choice on Conrad Verner, the survival of the Council, Udina or Anderson, stopping Ashley from killing Wrex, you can't have a renegade Shepard, because it causes problems to the ME3 Control ending and the nightmares narrative. Things like these and the consequences of these action carry over. Removing these options, basically removes 50% of the narrative work the writers need to keep track for their game. Not to mention the problems the reception of these consequences causes from a PR standpoint. It's the first thing I'd take away, if I were an EA exec put in charge of Bioware. And I just make Anthem with a different skin, going forward.
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Post by phoray on Dec 5, 2020 16:18:53 GMT
Doesn't the fact that DA drops all the characters and the location from the previous game before going to the next severely reduce the issue of a continuing branching narrative? The outcome of Alistair becoming King is two cameos, one of which you can hardly even tell he was there outside of Anora in DAI.
They can branch as much as they want, in game, so long as they're willing to leave it all behind, and they've pretty much been doing that. They could have at least tried to pretend that choosing who was Divine and who ruled Orlais actually had weight though, because their end game slides of what was it, Trespasser? pretty much leveled the narratives they had to deal with. Any Divine you choose makes the same decisions and gets the same name. And no matter who you choose to rule Orlais, they make peace with Fereldan off screen for no apparent reason. And it was also super clear who they weren't willing to murder "just in case" which was supremely irritating when it came to Samson, who was literally in our custody and on our chopping block only for voiced lines to be wasted on telling you you weren't allowed to execute him.
Alistair showing up for his two minutes and the war table mission at least made me feel like my choice mattered. I have to wonder, with the way they've written it to all default to the same vague setup, if they are even going to bother with that much come DA4
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Post by SirSourpuss on Dec 5, 2020 17:04:34 GMT
They can branch as much as they want, in game, so long as they're willing to leave it all behindSo you're basically saying they don't do choice and consequence. Isn't that why we had arguments about the Hero of Ferelde, Hawke, the Inquisitor, Shepard, etc. since this whole treatment started? Has this not been a drawback and a considerable source of people's burnout/indifference? Isn't one of the problems that the characters Bioware substitutes the old casts aren't as well received as the old ones? Is that not one of the reasons that, in a story and character driven genre, when the characters aren't well received, are one of the main reasons people check out? Please, explain to me if I am wrong in this.
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Post by phoray on Dec 5, 2020 18:24:16 GMT
you're basically saying they don't do choice and consequence Speaking of Dragon Age only here. I only played ME2 and ME3 once and I don't have enough memory or interest to recall what happened and what got dropped. I'm saying I've always been okay with the branching narrative occurring inside the game to it's completion and that honoring those choices with a brief cameo, a letter, references in codex in later games has made me happy. I am concerned that the way they handled DAI was they were ensuring from the get go, even INSIDE the base game, that your choices were meant to be as meaningless as possible inside the same game. Which is, to me, more concerning than any other change. 1. Whether Celene, Briala, or Gaspard, the Eluvian network is taken by Solas and Fereldan/Orlesian peace assured. This last part really rankles, because Gaspard practically promises to restart the war even before you select him. 2. Whether Lel, Cass, or Viv, the same decisions are made regarding the direction of the Chantry. And just like the Orlesian leadership, these are drastically different people. 3. Whether you sided mages or Templars is barely mentioned after the move to Skyhold so... obviously, at best, this is a codex reference. Viv always starts a new Circle. This last bit ticks me off as much as Andromeda reintroducing the SAME Krogan drama regarding their birth solution. I spent a lot of emotional energy and time in FIXING the South, and you, the writers, decided to UNFIX it. Fucking don't let me fix it then, or even pretend I fixed it. Like, jeebus. I didnt feel this way about DAO or DA2 as strongly. I think the only thing that came close was the mages in that cave, I think in Act 2 of DA2, and whether you helped them escape or turned them in, they are super pissed off at you inside the MAge tower area because they were recaptured. Technically, my having Samson executed for Collusion, as per Cullen, happened off screen so fine, I'll give them that. Alistair and Anora are both generally good people, and Fereldan doesn't entirely rely on the King to make all the decisions, so politically kinda makes sense that there is not much difference between them. And DAO, even though they meant this to be a Standalone game essentially, never implied that I had forever fixed a problem in Fereldan. I would just like them to work more on their illusion of choice skills. It was just too clear how everything I did as the Inquisitor was quickly undone, with Trespasser even removing your autonomy. Could we have at least waited until the next game? That would have been nice.
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Post by gervaise21 on Dec 5, 2020 19:07:59 GMT
I would just like them to work more on their illusion of choice skills. It was just too clear how everything I did as the Inquisitor was quickly undone, with Trespasser even removing your autonomy. Could we have at least waited until the next game? That would have been nice. May be they just wanted to be more honest about it. After all, I assume the reason we didn't discover that our boons from DAO had been ignored until DA2 was that it wasn't decided until after DAA that they would not be carried forward. Even then we only discover about the fact that they were rescinded if Alistair is king and visits Kirkwall. Otherwise you would still be in the dark that the Dalish boon "didn't work out" or that whilst the monarch had promised a free Circle, politically that had not been possible. There were at least hints in the epilogue to DAO that the city elf concession probably wouldn't last. The whole plotline of DAA and the Wardens establishing Vigil's Keep with the approval of the monarch was totally ignored in DAI and Trespasser. In fact Teagan's comments in Trespasser about the Wardens would make you think even the Hero of Ferelden had never existed. Surely our actions in DAO and DAA had rendered anything the Wardens had been guilty of under Sophie Drydan ancient history? Apparently not. I'm waiting to see how they are going to deal with the fall out from the Grey Warden plot in DAI in the next game, particularly as it is seems likely we are actually going to Weishauppt. You will recall they ignored the DAI epilogue completely when Hawke was deposited back in Kirkwall in the epilogue to Trespasser with still no word of what happened whilst they had been absent for several years up north. I am getting the feeling of Deja Vu there with DAA and the likelihood of connecting the dots with DAI over the Wardens.
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Post by colfoley on Dec 5, 2020 19:34:33 GMT
I would just like them to work more on their illusion of choice skills. It was just too clear how everything I did as the Inquisitor was quickly undone, with Trespasser even removing your autonomy. Could we have at least waited until the next game? That would have been nice. May be they just wanted to be more honest about it. After all, I assume the reason we didn't discover that our boons from DAO had been ignored until DA2 was that it wasn't decided until after DAA that they would not be carried forward. Even then we only discover about the fact that they were rescinded if Alistair is king and visits Kirkwall. Otherwise you would still be in the dark that the Dalish boon "didn't work out" or that whilst the monarch had promised a free Circle, politically that had not been possible. There were at least hints in the epilogue to DAO that the city elf concession probably wouldn't last. The whole plotline of DAA and the Wardens establishing Vigil's Keep with the approval of the monarch was totally ignored in DAI and Trespasser. In fact Teagan's comments in Trespasser about the Wardens would make you think even the Hero of Ferelden had never existed. Surely our actions in DAO and DAA had rendered anything the Wardens had been guilty of under Sophie Drydan ancient history? Apparently not. I'm waiting to see how they are going to deal with the fall out from the Grey Warden plot in DAI in the next game, particularly as it is seems likely we are actually going to Weishauppt. You will recall they ignored the DAI epilogue completely when Hawke was deposited back in Kirkwall in the epilogue to Trespasser with still no word of what happened whilst they had been absent for several years up north. I am getting the feeling of Deja Vu there with DAA and the likelihood of connecting the dots with DAI over the Wardens. the HOF could be viewed as more Ferelden then Grey Warden. And it is posdible to like an individual while hating the group, bull actually says as much. And while it may be an odd case of teleportation Hawke being at Kirkwall and the Warden fortress is not mutually exclusive.
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Post by eternalambiguity on Dec 5, 2020 20:41:53 GMT
So you're basically saying they don't do choice and consequence. Yes. Bioware doesn't really do choice and consequence, Bethesda doesn't do choice and consequence, CDPR doesn't do choice and consequence, and neither do any other AAA RPGs. And they never have. The choices you make are contained to one game, and virtually never reflected elsewhere afterward (ME3's Tuchanka and Rannoch are the only exceptions I can think of). We knew this a decade ago. I don't understand how people can still think otherwise.
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Post by gervaise21 on Dec 5, 2020 21:40:34 GMT
the HOF could be viewed as more Ferelden then Grey Warden. And it is posdible to like an individual while hating the group, bull actually says as much. The whole point of DAA though was the Wardens establishing an actual politically significant stronghold in Ferelden with the approval of the Monarch. The leadership in Weishauppt were very anxious that this should be a successful enterprise as it might establish a precedent for further Warden strongholds on similar lines elsewhere in Thedas. If the Hero dies killing the Arch-demon then the responsibility is taken over by the Orlesian Warden, so no love lost there but on the whole it is still successful. Yet in WoT2 and in game we have the stupid letter from Clarel seeking permission to enter the kingdom, again referring back to the unfortunate history with Sophie Dryden. They could have at least had her referring to the failed enterprise at Vigil's Keep for why she had to seek permission and then some sort of codex explaining why it hadn't lasted. Plus, of course, we have Leliana asking us to seek out the Warden Blackwall to find out what is up with the Wardens, when again the first port of call should have been Vigil's Keep and if she had tried there and not received a satisfactory answer, she could at least have said as much. Then we have Teagan harping on about Sophie Dryden again in Trespasser. It was definitely as though DAA never happened. Oddly enough the only place where Vigil's Keep is acknowledged is in the Last Flight but then that book makes it sound as though the problems with the Wardens were confined to Orlais and everywhere else, including Vigil's Keep, was operating normally. In game there was no consistency with the Wardens after DA2. This had nothing to do with player choices but the writers going in direct contradiction of something they had set up in their own expansion. In fact there was a fair bit of contradiction with what we understood was going on with them in DA2. Now I don't have a problem with them backtracking on the epilogue to DAI with regard to the attitude of the wider world to the Wardens. I always thought it ridiculous that just because we sent them out of Orlais (in my case for their own good) that everywhere suddenly turned against them, particularly when I expressly told Leliana not to use what happened at Adamant against them. It was also ridiculous that if you don't send them away, despite the dire warning when making the choice that Corypheus would still be a threat to them, that nothing bad happens as a result. Apparently he doesn't have such a widespread affect on Wardens after all, so why imply that there would be? That infuriated me because effectively they encourage you to take the common sense approach and then punished you when you did. So whilst I feel they ought to acknowledge the events of DAI and the epilogue to it in DA4, I won't be that upset if they decide to ignore it entirely because the Grey Warden plot never made any damn sense in the first place.
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Nov 24, 2021 20:18:46 GMT
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SirSourpuss
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Oct 16, 2017 16:19:07 GMT
October 2017
sirpetrakus
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, SWTOR
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Post by SirSourpuss on Dec 5, 2020 21:40:44 GMT
I would just like them to work more on their illusion of choice skills. It was just too clear how everything I did as the Inquisitor was quickly undone, with Trespasser even removing your autonomy. Could we have at least waited until the next game? That would have been nice. Expect this, but even worse. That's what I'm getting at. Yes. Bioware doesn't really do choice and consequence, Bethesda doesn't do choice and consequence, CDPR doesn't do choice and consequence, and neither do any other AAA RPGs. And they never have. The choices you make are contained to one game, and virtually never reflected elsewhere afterward (ME3's Tuchanka and Rannoch are the only exceptions I can think of). We knew this a decade ago. I don't understand how people can still think otherwise. Because you can't tell your customer base "choices matter" and then handle them in the most Minimum Viable Product way possible. Be upfront about it.
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NotN7
1,080
Apr 15, 2017 17:34:16 GMT
April 2017
notn7
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by NotN7 on Dec 5, 2020 21:49:50 GMT
I read an interview with her back around 2014-2015 (don't ask me to find it back) and what I got from it is that she sees RPGs as "adventure games with levels". Note that I mean character levels here. I mentioned Shadow of Mordor to give an example of what she meant by it. Saying that, she isn't really going off the design trend BioWare has been going since ME2/ME3. And she's not a developer, she's the EA executive that approve what gets and doesn't get made. If there was conflict between BioWare heads and EA over game design, she was the EA side of the conflict. It's possible I got it all wrong and she has been trying to push them to go back to pre-ME2 design and it was the people at the top of BioWare who were into auto-dialogues and streamlining.
Press X to doubt.
Edit: googling "Samantha Ryan interview 2014" returns a porn star.
I mean it was pretty obvious that the original dialogue choices were being phased starting with Mass Effect 1. Pretty much this, ME1's dialogue choices frequently felt like the same thing repeated. I personally found ME2's more differentiated. X
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The Elder King
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theelderking
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire
19631
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Post by The Elder King on Dec 5, 2020 22:15:29 GMT
I would just like them to work more on their illusion of choice skills. It was just too clear how everything I did as the Inquisitor was quickly undone, with Trespasser even removing your autonomy. Could we have at least waited until the next game? That would have been nice. Expect this, but even worse. That's what I'm getting at. Yes. Bioware doesn't really do choice and consequence, Bethesda doesn't do choice and consequence, CDPR doesn't do choice and consequence, and neither do any other AAA RPGs. And they never have. The choices you make are contained to one game, and virtually never reflected elsewhere afterward (ME3's Tuchanka and Rannoch are the only exceptions I can think of). We knew this a decade ago. I don't understand how people can still think otherwise. Because you can't tell your customer base "choices matter" and then handle them in the most Minimum Viable Product way possible. Be upfront about it. Do we know for sure if we’ll get even less choices and freedom then Inquisition, or it’s just best to expect this to not remain disappointed?
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Nov 24, 2021 20:18:46 GMT
5,622
SirSourpuss
7,694
Oct 16, 2017 16:19:07 GMT
October 2017
sirpetrakus
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, SWTOR
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Post by SirSourpuss on Dec 5, 2020 22:32:37 GMT
Do we know for sure if we’ll get even less choices and freedom then Inquisition, or it’s just best to expect this to not remain disappointed? I'm drawing up blanks and have been for over a year now. Which is making me very worried. It may be nothing, or it may be really bad. And since EA isn't going to lootbox their titles, outside of f2p and sports, I can assume it won't be that.
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