Also, what does that have to do with the fact that(as you've admitted yourself) most of them play out as nothing more than power fantasies?
I didn't say that. Games require a different user experience than movies, books, or television.
Okay...but what does that have to do with games being mostly power fantasies?
Nothing. I still never said games were power fantasies. I don't think they are.
No, you just said characters that don't dictate the plot are losers. I'm sure that's totes different, somehow.
Nah, I just said nobody wants to play as the loser. Characters that don't dictate the plot are just kinda boring (Vaan perhaps). In the grand scheme Hawke didn't really have much control over the happenings in Kirkwall but the plot was almost entirely focused on his/her family and relationships to other characters.
I'm reminded of a Babylon 5 episode that took place during the psychic arc. The space station was attacked by some aliens -it doesn't matter who- and the entire episode was from the perspective of two maintenance personnel. They had absolutely nothing to do with the main plot of the series and their actions were minor at best.
To this day, it's still one of my favorite episodes.
My opinion is that that is a result of the medium. I would not enjoy playing a game in which that is the focus.
And the cheesy Dragon Age romance song playing the background over a montage of baking brownies and stuff. Bioware wins all the awards.
Sounds like a plan to me. The thing that bugs me right now is it's like...here's a harem of submissive gay dudes and sheltered teenagers with emotional problems. Choose which you want to mate with for life! For life.
Just, like, little "dates" and changing the dialogue a little would work for me. AND, no awkward underpants wrestling that way. Hopefully those guys at Fox wouldn't find anything to quibble with about two characters enjoying one another's company on a roughly platonic level.
Also, what does that have to do with the fact that(as you've admitted yourself) most of them play out as nothing more than power fantasies?
I didn't say that. Games require a different user experience than movies, books, or television.
Okay...but what does that have to do with games being mostly power fantasies?
Nothing. I still never said games were power fantasies. I don't think they are.
No, you just said characters that don't dictate the plot are losers. I'm sure that's totes different, somehow.
Nah, I just said nobody wants to play as the loser. Characters that don't dictate the plot are just kinda boring (Vaan perhaps). In the grand scheme Hawke didn't really have much control over the happenings in Kirkwall but the plot was almost entirely focused on his/her family and relationships to other characters.
I'm reminded of a Babylon 5 episode that took place during the psychic arc. The space station was attacked by some aliens -it doesn't matter who- and the entire episode was from the perspective of two maintenance personnel. They had absolutely nothing to do with the main plot of the series and their actions were minor at best.
To this day, it's still one of my favorite episodes.
My opinion is that that is a result of the medium. I would not enjoy playing a game in which that is the focus.
It's a result of an established medium. You can get away with different stories once the universe has been established. Thedas was established in Origins, Awakening, Leliana's story, Golems, and Witch Hunt.
And if you played any DLC in which the Warden or Hawke or any other game in which the primary protagonist is not the PC, then you have played a game like that. Knife of Kirkwall, Storm of Zehir, Halo Reach/ODST, Vergil's Downfall, ect
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
0
BrocksMulletInto the sunrise, on a jet-ski. Natch.Registered Userregular
So, there are a bunch of Q&A panels up on Nerd Appropriate, all about DA:I, most of them worth listening to, the customization and race ones in particular. http://biowarebase.nerdappropriate.com/
Basically, they're divorcing stats and appearance. Yes, you can have a hot pink armor with seashell pauldrons, that does what you want, if you find the right recipes and materials.
Lovely, cascading beards are still up in the air for the Qunari, as are skull castles. (The questioners have the right priorities, i.e. chest hair revealing armor for dwarves.)
Maybe the first crafting system I've ever been interested in, if they pull it off.
That sounds like a lesson taken from The Old Republic. They have regular armor with stats and stuff, and they also have adaptive armor that scales with whatever modular buffs you put in. So if you get a set, you can wear it the entire game and just upgrade it if you so choose.
I like that.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
so I never finished DA2, I ended up getting bored after the
Arishok was killed by me.
I liked that dude
But I feel like playing it so I can comment on DA2 more. Even though I have some idea how it ends. Sadly my saves have been destroyed, so curious does the DA:O save generator work well? I know when DA2 first came out there were some ...issues.
I think it works well enough, but there's the usual savegame glitches that DA2 was apparently good at.
That said, DAI will have (free?) DLC that will allow players to completely customize their save going into DAI, so beating DAO and DA2 isn't really necessary anymore. I think.
It looks like they're leaning more toward a Fable over the shoulder approach with a token tactical view...but that's fine by me. Both Fable and Baldur's Gate are good games, and things are leaning more and more toward controller side of things, so it makes a lot of sense.
I would normally agree, but what other game series has allowed one to capture their character's awe and majesty mid-fart, and place it in a spot of veneration in statue form?
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
I was mainly talking about the controls and adventuring flow, but let's not pretend Dragon Age is sooo much more mature with Morrigan and covering everyone in blood after every fight because...Hot Topic brand synergies or something.
They're hitting the buzz word so hard, it's actually making me more skeptical. On the other hand, maybe they saw the way the wind was turning with the witcher and the like?
well. there are consequences. at PAX, they decided to keep going and help the keep instead of helping the village.
The presenters said that village was a place you could go to and buy things, it was a staging point out there in the wilderness and probably had a quest or two in it. Now they are dead and gone.
I will admit that consequences is a hard buzzword to deal with. I mean, just look at us as gamers and what game designers have given us. We've helped so many no name npcs because its only furthered our own cause to progress the game. We only see them as venders and quest givers and not actual people because that is all the designers wanted them to be. It is rather hard to make an NPC, or even a party member, something that the vast majority of players care about, because in the end, many are just the latest pixels to be stacked in the butcher's pile we've started since we were four or five years old.
Bioware definitely has the ability to make you care about NPCs, they know how the job is done. The worry is that they don't always do it.
Or they try too hard, as with the kid at the start of ME3 and those dumb dream sequences that followed.
But yeah, generally they know how to get me to give a damn about certain NPC's.
Eh, Ghost kid is actually an example of them not trying at all. A good example of them trying is at the death of a certain Krogan who's widow you leave his goodbye letter to. Hardly any conversations with that guy at all, but more than enough effort given to the audience to make his passing painful.
They're hitting the buzz word so hard, it's actually making me more skeptical. On the other hand, maybe they saw the way the wind was turning with the witcher and the like?
Meh. Bioware has been saying "consequences" forever.
And meh, I don't know if the Witcher did anything better. Honestly, I played Witcher 2 after it was hyped so hard and I didin't feel the "consequences" were any better than a Bioware game in the long run.
well. there are consequences. at PAX, they decided to keep going and help the keep instead of helping the village.
The presenters said that village was a place you could go to and buy things, it was a staging point out there in the wilderness and probably had a quest or two in it. Now they are dead and gone.
I will admit that consequences is a hard buzzword to deal with. I mean, just look at us as gamers and what game designers have given us. We've helped so many no name npcs because its only furthered our own cause to progress the game. We only see them as venders and quest givers and not actual people because that is all the designers wanted them to be. It is rather hard to make an NPC, or even a party member, something that the vast majority of players care about, because in the end, many are just the latest pixels to be stacked in the butcher's pile we've started since we were four or five years old.
As I played through KOTOR2, I thought Obsidian had done a pretty interesting job of hanging a lampshade on that. Specifically when Kreia asks something like 'Have you ever noticed your companions follow you without question?' It seemed to me they were calling attention to the fact that no matter what you do or where you go, your party just goes along with your choices. Attack a creature in the forrest? Sure! Break into somebody's house, while they're inside watching you, and take anything not nailed down? No problem!
I thought it was pretty cool.
Then it was twisted into some treatise on the nature of the force or some nonsense. The famous LP and it's specific interpretation has bent what could've been a cool reading into just another version of 'because the devs want it this way'.
To be fair, it's going to be difficult to program for such things. The whole game world can't be that fluid and most party members, as in DAO, have to reach a specific trigger point or else their programmed morality never comes into play. But all too often, yeah, NPCs and party members and whatever are often just two dimensional XP factories.
And when you go onto a forum and post about how you decided not to play like an amoral bastard, somebody responds by saying how stupid you are because 'it's just a game'. You can't win for losing.
Bioware definitely has the ability to make you care about NPCs, they know how the job is done. The worry is that they don't always do it.
Or they try too hard, as with the kid at the start of ME3 and those dumb dream sequences that followed.
But yeah, generally they know how to get me to give a damn about certain NPC's.
Eh, Ghost kid is actually an example of them not trying at all. A good example of them trying is at the death of a certain Krogan who's widow you leave his goodbye letter to. Hardly any conversations with that guy at all, but more than enough effort given to the audience to make his passing painful.
That whole thing was so weird. The beginning and end of ME3 felt like it was done by totally different people than the middle.
I really want to look forward to DA3, but these over-the-shoulder vids and talk about controllers is turning me off.
Posts
My opinion is that that is a result of the medium. I would not enjoy playing a game in which that is the focus.
Just, like, little "dates" and changing the dialogue a little would work for me. AND, no awkward underpants wrestling that way. Hopefully those guys at Fox wouldn't find anything to quibble with about two characters enjoying one another's company on a roughly platonic level.
It's a result of an established medium. You can get away with different stories once the universe has been established. Thedas was established in Origins, Awakening, Leliana's story, Golems, and Witch Hunt.
And if you played any DLC in which the Warden or Hawke or any other game in which the primary protagonist is not the PC, then you have played a game like that. Knife of Kirkwall, Storm of Zehir, Halo Reach/ODST, Vergil's Downfall, ect
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
http://biowarebase.nerdappropriate.com/
Basically, they're divorcing stats and appearance. Yes, you can have a hot pink armor with seashell pauldrons, that does what you want, if you find the right recipes and materials.
Lovely, cascading beards are still up in the air for the Qunari, as are skull castles. (The questioners have the right priorities, i.e. chest hair revealing armor for dwarves.)
Maybe the first crafting system I've ever been interested in, if they pull it off.
Steam: BrocksMullet http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197972421669/
That sounds like a lesson taken from The Old Republic. They have regular armor with stats and stuff, and they also have adaptive armor that scales with whatever modular buffs you put in. So if you get a set, you can wear it the entire game and just upgrade it if you so choose.
I like that.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Sadly, no full transcript. I can answer questions, maybe? (The answer is under discussion.)
Steam: BrocksMullet http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197972421669/
I liked that dude
But I feel like playing it so I can comment on DA2 more. Even though I have some idea how it ends. Sadly my saves have been destroyed, so curious does the DA:O save generator work well? I know when DA2 first came out there were some ...issues.
(my da origins save is gone as well)
That said, DAI will have (free?) DLC that will allow players to completely customize their save going into DAI, so beating DAO and DA2 isn't really necessary anymore. I think.
Why did you kill him? I didn't.
Because the only alternative was
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Because he's filthy qunari scum?
I killed him because the Qun demanded I kill him. Sweet sweet irony that the code of ethics he held so dear was his downfall...
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f8xJMWRI-cA
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Steam: BrocksMullet http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197972421669/
You already do. *salute*
Functionally an aggregate of old footage until 26:30, I think.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
You say that like its an accomplishment.
I would normally agree, but what other game series has allowed one to capture their character's awe and majesty mid-fart, and place it in a spot of veneration in statue form?
~ Buckaroo Banzai
A fair point.
I wasn't overly impressed with DA2, but DA3 certainly has my attention now.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
The presenters said that village was a place you could go to and buy things, it was a staging point out there in the wilderness and probably had a quest or two in it. Now they are dead and gone.
I will admit that consequences is a hard buzzword to deal with. I mean, just look at us as gamers and what game designers have given us. We've helped so many no name npcs because its only furthered our own cause to progress the game. We only see them as venders and quest givers and not actual people because that is all the designers wanted them to be. It is rather hard to make an NPC, or even a party member, something that the vast majority of players care about, because in the end, many are just the latest pixels to be stacked in the butcher's pile we've started since we were four or five years old.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Maybe a little too much in some cases.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
True, but how many people cared about the village you saved at Feros beyond the mission to find out what Saren wanted out there?
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Or they try too hard, as with the kid at the start of ME3 and those dumb dream sequences that followed.
But yeah, generally they know how to get me to give a damn about certain NPC's.
Eh, Ghost kid is actually an example of them not trying at all. A good example of them trying is at the death of a certain Krogan who's widow you leave his goodbye letter to. Hardly any conversations with that guy at all, but more than enough effort given to the audience to make his passing painful.
Meh. Bioware has been saying "consequences" forever.
And meh, I don't know if the Witcher did anything better. Honestly, I played Witcher 2 after it was hyped so hard and I didin't feel the "consequences" were any better than a Bioware game in the long run.
But maybe I'm just hard to please.
As I played through KOTOR2, I thought Obsidian had done a pretty interesting job of hanging a lampshade on that. Specifically when Kreia asks something like 'Have you ever noticed your companions follow you without question?' It seemed to me they were calling attention to the fact that no matter what you do or where you go, your party just goes along with your choices. Attack a creature in the forrest? Sure! Break into somebody's house, while they're inside watching you, and take anything not nailed down? No problem!
I thought it was pretty cool.
Then it was twisted into some treatise on the nature of the force or some nonsense. The famous LP and it's specific interpretation has bent what could've been a cool reading into just another version of 'because the devs want it this way'.
To be fair, it's going to be difficult to program for such things. The whole game world can't be that fluid and most party members, as in DAO, have to reach a specific trigger point or else their programmed morality never comes into play. But all too often, yeah, NPCs and party members and whatever are often just two dimensional XP factories.
And when you go onto a forum and post about how you decided not to play like an amoral bastard, somebody responds by saying how stupid you are because 'it's just a game'. You can't win for losing.
I really want to look forward to DA3, but these over-the-shoulder vids and talk about controllers is turning me off.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists