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Post by Catilina on Feb 23, 2017 23:46:59 GMT
About the freedom: For example Hawke more personal to me, I felt this poor dialog options good enough to tell a good story. Probably not for an open world (TES or Fallout). And the Inquisitor's playfield not bigger than Hawke's. (And s/he haven't more dialogie options for shading his/her character.) No matter, than the Inquisitor is an "elfy" elf, or dwarf, vasoth or noble Andrastian, s/he still working for the Chantry. As I felt, s/he wasn't the leader, he was the Chosen One, who needed to Cassandra and Leliana to rebuilt the Chantry, so the real leaders of the Inquisition are Leliana and Cassandra, with Josephine's and Cullen's help, and the Inquisitor's hand needed to close the big bad holes in the sky. Maybe this just me, but Hawke's story was at least honest. Hawke's decisions not really matter, s/he only can affect his/her friends, but they are still acting independently, just as Inquisitor's companions, who joined to avert the danger, and stay not because they was friends, only for their cause. Inquisitor's opportunities only seemingly bigger. (My opinion – and I like Inquisition.) While the Inquisition starts as an edict from the Chantry, it is essentially free of it. Many of the choices and dialogues with characters throughout the game can let you declare the intent of your Inquisitor towards the Chantry overall.
As for the story and the way the cast is held together... I enjoyed Inquisition's take with how they are brought together because of the threat but then you can affect the reasons for why they stay, what happens when the threat is gone, and ultimately on the future for many of these companions and advisors. And watching the ties between NPCs grow and alter based on choices was extremely intriguing, and I think something that had been started in DA2 and expanded on.
Of course, the story required that Inquisitor must support the Chantry, just wanted to say, that the Inquisitor haven't real freedom, no more, than Hawke, for example. I know, that so hard to build the story if every the decisions matter, and the developers want to continue. But I do not want to see more like this. The Inquisition was the worst in the whole series, and this was not really the story's flaw, this was the game mechanism: They wanted to tell a story. This worked in DAO, and worked in DA2 very well, but the Inquisition wanted to be an "open world" rpg at the same time, but as I see in this cathegory the TES and the Fallout series much better. I like Inquisitor, and I like the companions too (not every companions, the DA2 was better), so: I want to replay, but the WORK between the real quests makes hard this. Okay, I know, that in life the people working, just I don't want to see that in the game. I don't want to gather stuff, I don't want meaningless filler quests, or at least only few. I just want a story. Or: I just want a world for exploring with some stories. The Inquisition wasn't a good mix – for me, ofc.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2017 13:49:17 GMT
Contrivance, sure. Railroading, I'm not convinced. I don't think the game necessarily needs to know what that motivation is. As I see it, the only barrier preventing the player from adding a motivation is the game doing it for him. As long as the game doesn't do that, the player is free to do so. I'll repeat a point I made earlier, since it's relevant to the Iakus vs Sylvius exchange: I think the best of both worlds is that the first run is railroaded -- you sacrifice most of your player agency for the sake of experiencing a well-crafted story. In the second and subsequent runs, you can ignore the story altogether. I even suggested making this a setting the player can control: Story or Choice, pick one. You can switch from Story to Choice mid-game, but not the reverse. Extrapolating further, wouldn't it be interesting if you could completely control the initial story parameters from the very beginning? Something like a mini Dragon's Age Keep, but instead of just a few binary choices, you can direct the "story" into one of five trajectories. The first four would be factional: side with Mages, or Templars, or Wardens, or Red Jenny. The fifth would be no arc at all, you'll make your own story (emergent gameplay). Siding with a faction changes the main narrative, perhaps significantly. For example, perhaps siding with the mages turns the game into a running battle against Alexius, hopping through time. While siding with the Red Jenny's puts the whole Corypheus conflict in the background, war like any other war, and focuses on refugees and servants surviving and getting one over on the nobility lining up behind one side or another. All of the PC's influence would be on a local band of little people. It would essentially be a bundle of four games in one. Of course, the downside is that it will cost more than 4x as much effort to finish the game, or the story length will only be a quarter as long, but maybe that's worth it? It's not that far from what Skyrim did, after all. that's what SWTOR is, where essentially you join one out of 8 Factions by choosing your class to experience a different story that takes place at roughly the same time as the other 7 faction/class stories. Some of your protagonists work directly against one another (I.e. Imperial Agent and Consular on Balmorra). This happens over the background of the two world Faction stories. Also, each class story can be resolved from two perspectives, LS and DS. So you have like 16 games in one, minimum. It always saddens me that SWTOR is underappreciated as a titan of the story-telling games, and it is actually revolutionary, and absolutely mind-blowingly awesome.
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Post by adrianbc on Feb 24, 2017 14:59:59 GMT
<abbr data-timestamp="1487944157000" class="o-timestamp time" title="Feb 24, 2017 15:49:17 GMT 2">Feb 24, 2017 15:49:17 GMT 2</abbr> domi said: that's what SWTOR is, where essentially you join one out of 8 Factions by choosing your class to experience a different story that takes place at roughly the same time as the other 7 faction stories. Some of your protagonists work directly against one another (I.e. Imperial Agent and Consular on Balmorra). This happens over the background of the two world Faction stories. Also, each class story can be resolved from two perspectives, LS and DS. So you have like 16 games in one, minimum. It always saddens me that SWTOR is underappreciated as a story-telling game, where it is actually revolutionary, and absolutely mind-blowingly awesome. I would have definitely played SWTOR as a payed, single-player campaign RPG instead of an online game. But since Bioware was not interested to release such a version, I tried it, saw it was good, and got out . MMORPG`s are not my cup of tea.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2017 15:07:20 GMT
<abbr data-timestamp="1487944157000" class="o-timestamp time" title="Feb 24, 2017 15:49:17 GMT 2">Feb 24, 2017 15:49:17 GMT 2</abbr> domi said: that's what SWTOR is, where essentially you join one out of 8 Factions by choosing your class to experience a different story that takes place at roughly the same time as the other 7 faction stories. Some of your protagonists work directly against one another (I.e. Imperial Agent and Consular on Balmorra). This happens over the background of the two world Faction stories. Also, each class story can be resolved from two perspectives, LS and DS. So you have like 16 games in one, minimum. It always saddens me that SWTOR is underappreciated as a story-telling game, where it is actually revolutionary, and absolutely mind-blowingly awesome. I would have definitely played SWTOR as a payed, single-player campaign RPG instead of an online game. But since Bioware was not interested to release such a version, I tried it, saw it was good, and got out :D . MMORPG`s are not my cup of tea. But you totally can do it. I played it completely single-player for the first 6 months, and only afterwards started to do the MMO content (and had a blast. tried other MMOs, and did not like them). I paid $100 for Andromeda. The first two months of SWTOR are $15, then preferred status is more than enough to just do SP. Totally worth it for checking out some of the class stories if not all eight. Before SWTOR I have never tried anything Multiplayer. There was a tremendous benefit to keeping my mind open and giving it a shot. They could have bundled up vanilla SWTOR story as a B2P single-player title. But tbh, it is unnecessary. I know folks played the main line as complete F2P all on their own.
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Post by Warrick on Feb 27, 2017 1:02:24 GMT
The article reads like we don't like DAI, we want DA2-but-better. Except all wrapped in words so it sounds like they're new ideas.
The DA2 revisionism is tiresome. People don't remember that Hawke was hyped pre-release as "the most important person in Thedas history". Now people are writing brainy thinkpieces citing Hawke's ineffectiveness as clever commentary by Bioware about the role of individuals against the tide of social change. Or as a glowing example of "finding your way through the world as cleverly as you can", as opposed to the tired, old, unsexy cliché of saving the world. Please. It's a bunch of ad hoc rationalizations.
I'm also against predefined PCs in RPGs. I haven't found yet one of those that I like. It's difficult to make the character mine if I have no part in making it.
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Post by mrfixit on Feb 27, 2017 1:27:34 GMT
The DA2 revisionism is tiresome. People don't remember that Hawke was hyped pre-release as "the most important person in Thedas history". Now people are writing brainy thinkpieces citing Hawke's ineffectiveness as clever commentary by Bioware about the role of individuals against the tide of social change. Or as a glowing example of "finding your way through the world as cleverly as you can", as opposed to the tired, old, unsexy cliché of saving the world. Please. It's a bunch of ad hoc rationalizations. Whatever you or I may think of DA2, the narrative was definitely about a person who got swept up in events he couldn't change. Hawke couldn't save his own mother, he couldn't stop the Qunari from attacking, he couldn't stop templars and mages from starting a war, nor could he rein in his own friend/companion/love interest. These aren't rationalizations, these are observable facts concerning the game's narrative and theme.
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Post by Warrick on Feb 27, 2017 2:00:07 GMT
Gaider explained the bit about Leandra. He wanted to have a dramatic scene and thought that if several options were provided, we would choose to save her every time, thus skipping the dramatism. That's the real reason you can't save Leandra.
Similarly, Orsino turns on pro-mages Hawke because some exec demanded two boss fights. That's it. It's not sociological commentary. All that sort of stuff started to pop up years later.
Pre-release Hawke was this über badass (remember the trailer fighting the Arishok) that would Rise To Power. Why did he even become champion and then viscount if his story is supposed to be one of cronic failure? What was the point?
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Post by Catilina on Feb 27, 2017 2:34:44 GMT
Gaider explained the bit about Leandra. He wanted to have a dramatic scene and thought that if several options were provided, we would choose to save her every time, thus skipping the dramatism. That's the real reason you can't save Leandra. Similarly, Orsino turns on pro-mages Hawke because some exec demanded two boss fights. That's it. It's not sociological commentary. All that sort of stuff started to pop up years later. Pre-release Hawke was this über badass (remember the trailer fighting the Arishok) that would Rise To Power. Why did he even become champion and then viscount if his story is supposed to be one of cronic failure? What was the point? 3. And? What is Hawke's benefit, from the fact that s/he is champion? ("They give me a medal. It's shiny.") The false feeling that s/he can be Viscount, and will be able to stop in Meredith' amuck, and can protect him/herself and/or his/her friends (Merrill/Anders) in his/her own right. What happen, if s/he became Viscount? Nothing. S/He got a bleeding city state, what exploded by his/her friend/lover/companion, and s/he wasn't able to prevent it. 2. Orsino not just as simple: his fate have some sense (perhaps not so much, but still): the mages at this point seems losing: the Templars still outnumbered, and waited the reinforcement. He acted in desperation, as Anders said. He lost his mind. Don't want to be slave anymore, so: he committed suicide, and probably wanted to show, that he long time ago would be able to to destroy anything, if he wanted. But don't wanted, until now. Everyone's patience is finite, and I do not think that isolation, the lack of privacy and constant oversight would be healthy. I think so hard to be normal such a circumstances. (Not mentioned: Hawke don't able to prevent this. No matter, that s/he support Orsino.) Okay, it's just my theory. And perhaps needed an acceptable explain the players, who choose the Templar side – I think this is hard to be explain with Hawke's background and Meredith's law-breaking system. 1. Yes. Leandra's death (the siblings' fate) was to confirm the feeling of helplessness.
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Post by Warrick on Feb 27, 2017 3:02:14 GMT
Come on mate.
I give you a like for effort.
Anyways this is probably drifting off topic. And I'm all for "DA2-but-better" sort of games after all.
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Post by Iakus on Feb 27, 2017 20:30:06 GMT
I'll repeat a point I made earlier, since it's relevant to the Iakus vs Sylvius exchange: I think the best of both worlds is that the first run is railroaded -- you sacrifice most of your player agency for the sake of experiencing a well-crafted story. In the second and subsequent runs, you can ignore the story altogether. I even suggested making this a setting the player can control: Story or Choice, pick one. You can switch from Story to Choice mid-game, but not the reverse. I would have to disagree. I think the first run is where player agency is MOST important. That's where you you are operating with the least amount of meta knowledge, where the story's twists and turns are at their most effective. That's the point where I want to be as free as possible to act and react. Eh, I don't know about that. It takes away a lot of in-game freedom. I mean in DA2, my favorite type of story is for Hawke to begin teh game pro-Templar, and gradually shift to becoming pro-mage. I'll take longer, more nuanced games any time.
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Post by PapaCharlie9 on Feb 28, 2017 19:11:13 GMT
I'll repeat a point I made earlier, since it's relevant to the Iakus vs Sylvius exchange: I think the best of both worlds is that the first run is railroaded -- you sacrifice most of your player agency for the sake of experiencing a well-crafted story. In the second and subsequent runs, you can ignore the story altogether. I even suggested making this a setting the player can control: Story or Choice, pick one. You can switch from Story to Choice mid-game, but not the reverse. I would have to disagree. I think the first run is where player agency is MOST important. That's where you you are operating with the least amount of meta knowledge, where the story's twists and turns are at their most effective. That's the point where I want to be as free as possible to act and react. But in my experience, that leads to "playing the game wrong" and missing out on stuff you might have liked better. For example, for my first run of DAI, which was totally blind, my Inquisitor started out faithful, because I *guessed* that would reveal more content I would like, but gradually realized that was a mistake and being friends with certain anti-Chantry individuals was more important than being faithful. So I had to turn her into a hypocrite. Great. I suppose if I was an RP purist I would have stuck with the faithful initial decision, and just did another run to try a different RP approach, but who has time to do that? Particularly when the game is a 60-120 hour investment? Now, as it turns out, I was wiling to put in that investment for another run, and several more beyond, but I'm more the exception than the rule. If the vast majority of your audience can only afford one, or at most two, runs through your game, there's a disincentive in having too much content locked behind branching decisions. That being the case, player agency in the first run has less value, insofar as player decisions affect story branches. If player agency has no impact on the plot or branches, that's a different story.
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Post by Iakus on Feb 28, 2017 19:19:48 GMT
I would have to disagree. I think the first run is where player agency is MOST important. That's where you you are operating with the least amount of meta knowledge, where the story's twists and turns are at their most effective. That's the point where I want to be as free as possible to act and react. But in my experience, that leads to "playing the game wrong" and missing out on stuff you might have liked better. For example, for my first run of DAI, which was totally blind, my Inquisitor started out faithful, because I *guessed* that would reveal more content I would like, but gradually realized that was a mistake and being friends with certain anti-Chantry individuals was more important than being faithful. So I had to turn her into a hypocrite. Great. I suppose if I was an RP purist I would have stuck with the faithful initial decision, and just did another run to try a different RP approach, but who has time to do that? Particularly when the game is a 60-120 hour investment? Now, as it turns out, I was wiling to put in that investment for another run, and several more beyond, but I'm more the exception than the rule. If the vast majority of your audience can only afford one, or at most two, runs through your game, there's a disincentive in having too much content locked behind branching decisions. That being the case, player agency in the first run has less value, insofar as player decisions affect story branches. If player agency has no impact on the plot or branches, that's a different story. Or you could play as a faithful Inquisitor who's faith is shaken, and become disillusioned. My first Inquisitor was faithful and romanced Cassandra, and was horrified at the thought of losing her as the Divine, even getting some interesting reactions when telling her she should not be Divine, even if it meant the Chantry fell as a result (interesting reaction from her, that she was sad to hear that coming from one of the faithful) Heck my most recent game I was a good Dalish (told Cassandra at the start that she was Dalish and they had their own gods) who ended up believing in the Maker after everything she saw and did, and by the end of Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, was able to order Florianne to be sent to a cloister (an action only an Andrastrian Inquisitor could take)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2017 20:17:42 GMT
To be fair, Inquisition completely supports the change of mind in the PC. After all, s/he emerges from the breach with the yet another near case of amnesia (they should sell insurance for that or something). She might surmise that she is a faithful Andrastian, but as the game goes on, if it makes sense for you for her to change her mind, why not? You can RP the crisis of faith just fine.
I am someone who can only afford one or two runs. In MET, I have enjoyed a paragon and a renegade runs, one male one female, and loved them. I felt that there were more choices to be made, but I felt satisfied. In DA2, I started the second run, and I felt that I have made the choices that satisfied me completely the first time around though I was really torn on that run a few times. My first run was definitive, though it would not have been, I wager, the "standard" run for everyone 9for one I have chosen not to recruit one of the companions). Selecting all the different options and playing with different companions made me grow disinterested, if it were 'standard' I would not have continued. I had to either start repeating myself, or abandon the second PT. I've abandoned it.
I much preferred the MET that had enough cool stuff for at least two runs.
And SWTOR was even better where I had enjoyed all 8 class stories, and some of them multiple times, with Male and female or DS/LS options. It had a blast for ~2 years (2.5 if you count in all MP content I was doing).
Player agency first time has never been unwelcome for me. I remember playing Blade and SOul last year. When that game came out in Korea, it had initially a Dark Path and a Light path. But, eventually, the company could not sustain the equal amount of content for a bad guy and a good guy, so they have amalgamated the two path, picking what they felt was the strongest bits of both, and the Western edition went through even more streamlining to make the story smoother.
So, I got to watch my character that spent a huge chunk of the game being appealed to not to seek revenge walk right past the ghosts from his past to kneel in front of the local Dark Overlord. Then, in an inexplicable fashion, he rebelled (off-screen). Then, he committed a huge act of vengeance... again (boy, the guy was a martial artist, don't they have meditation for it or something?)... only two minutes later to nod to the yet another ghost/Goddess and take custody of his reborn/loli-fied mortal enemy, he'd just slain in a fit of red-hot anger. Seriously, that was the first game ever I won by adopting The Major Villain (I am obviously out of tune with Korean sentimentality, they loved that twist apparently).
So, if I got into the game that started to zigzag me to the most "interesting" path like that, I'd do the same thing I did to Blade and Soul. Uninstall. Seriously, if I chose to play a split personality maniac, well, that will be on me. But if the game tells me what's the coolest thing to do... I am outta here. I don't think I will play another "press F for your one dialogue choice" game.
To this day, I remember sitting there, staring at the screen and trying to find some way of saying: "No, most esteemed Celestial Jiwan, I absolutely do not want to adopt Jinsoyan, no matter how tough her childhood was. Not even if you got all Four Guardians including Mushin the Divine Fist, to kneel in front of me asking for such a favor. No means "no". Hang on... aniyo Are we good? Now you can go and line up the suitable guardian for the adorable Jinsoyan, and don't tell me, because I normally don't kill babies, but for that b888ch, I am willing to make an exception. Oh. Dart. Okay, from the top..."
The only game where railroading worked for me at all, was the game so bad that I did not develop even rudimentary emotions towards the plot and characters. basically, when my level of "I just don't give a flying ***" was sufficient, they could railroad all they want.
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Post by Sylvius the Mad on Mar 2, 2017 20:44:27 GMT
I'll repeat a point I made earlier, since it's relevant to the Iakus vs Sylvius exchange: I think the best of both worlds is that the first run is railroaded -- you sacrifice most of your player agency for the sake of experiencing a well-crafted story. In the second and subsequent runs, you can ignore the story altogether. I even suggested making this a setting the player can control: Story or Choice, pick one. You can switch from Story to Choice mid-game, but not the reverse. Extrapolating further, wouldn't it be interesting if you could completely control the initial story parameters from the very beginning? Something like a mini Dragon's Age Keep, but instead of just a few binary choices, you can direct the "story" into one of five trajectories. The first four would be factional: side with Mages, or Templars, or Wardens, or Red Jenny. The fifth would be no arc at all, you'll make your own story (emergent gameplay). Siding with a faction changes the main narrative, perhaps significantly. For example, perhaps siding with the mages turns the game into a running battle against Alexius, hopping through time. While siding with the Red Jenny's puts the whole Corypheus conflict in the background, war like any other war, and focuses on refugees and servants surviving and getting one over on the nobility lining up behind one side or another. All of the PC's influence would be on a local band of little people. It would essentially be a bundle of four games in one. Of course, the downside is that it will cost more than 4x as much effort to finish the game, or the story length will only be a quarter as long, but maybe that's worth it? It's not that far from what Skyrim did, after all. I like the idea of having that story/choices switch, but the first playthrough is the one in which I think choices are the most important. I find that I need to experience an honest reaction to the in-game content the first time I see it. Then, I can refer back to that experience when I see that content again on subsequent playthroughs. My main issue with BioWare's voiced protagonist games (except DAI) is that I too often didn’t get to experience that first pass because I'm too busy being confused about who my character is because I'm not in control of it. But on subsequent playthroughs, railroading isn't really a problem. I'll sometimes do it myself if I want to see some specific outcome or event or plot branch. For example, I couldn't stand DA2 when I first played it, and after 3 attempts I was unable to get through the game. Eventually, I just gave up and read a plot synopsis so I would know what happened for the purposed of future games. But over time, as I built myself a detailed headcanon for what actually happened in DA2, I became able to enjoy DA2 for its story rather than as a roleplaying experience (where it fails badly). It's not a bad game. It is a game I don't like. But if I'd been able to craft a character and make choices on my first playthrough, I'd probably love it.
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Post by Sylvius the Mad on Mar 2, 2017 20:48:59 GMT
But in my experience, that leads to "playing the game wrong" and missing out on stuff you might have liked better. For example, for my first run of DAI, which was totally blind, my Inquisitor started out faithful, because I *guessed* that would reveal more content I would like, but gradually realized that was a mistake and being friends with certain anti-Chantry individuals was more important than being faithful. So I had to turn her into a hypocrite. Great. I suppose if I was an RP purist I would have stuck with the faithful initial decision, and just did another run to try a different RP approach, but who has time to do that? Particularly when the game is a 60-120 hour investment? Now, as it turns out, I was wiling to put in that investment for another run, and several more beyond, but I'm more the exception than the rule. If the vast majority of your audience can only afford one, or at most two, runs through your game, there's a disincentive in having too much content locked behind branching decisions. That being the case, player agency in the first run has less value, insofar as player decisions affect story branches. If player agency has no impact on the plot or branches, that's a different story. I routinely abandon playthroughs unfinished if I come to realize I'm not enjoying that character. Plus, I mostly don't reload when I die. That didn't help much in DAI, of course; I don't think I encountered a single challenging fight until Jaws of Hakkon.
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