As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Dragon Age Thread - Bring your boxing gloves!

19394959698

Posts

  • jdarksunjdarksun Struggler VARegistered User regular
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.
    jdarksun wrote: »
    And in DA:O, I played as The Warden and stopped the Blight. Oh, you did that too? The Origin stories were a nice touch and all, but not really anything more than that.
    All they did was allow you to customize your character? To put your own special spin on something and make it yours?

    Wow, it's, like, you'd be able to roleplay in a roleplaying game.
    I'm able to customize Shepard and Hawke too...
    You can pick the default, high-resolution look or futz around with sliders to get something sub-par. Minor cosmetic alteration is not character customization.

  • PreciousBodilyFluidsPreciousBodilyFluids Registered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.
    jdarksun wrote: »
    And in DA:O, I played as The Warden and stopped the Blight. Oh, you did that too? The Origin stories were a nice touch and all, but not really anything more than that.
    All they did was allow you to customize your character? To put your own special spin on something and make it yours?

    Wow, it's, like, you'd be able to roleplay in a roleplaying game.
    I'm able to customize Shepard and Hawke too...
    You can pick the default, high-resolution look or futz around with sliders to get something sub-par. Minor cosmetic alteration is not character customization.

    Haha. Skin tone, hair, facial hair, cheekbone structure, eyes, eyebrows, mouth, nose...

    You can pretty much create any face. That's not a "minor cosmetic alteration" bro

    And how is that any different from DA:O?

  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.

    Man, it's really not that clear cut

    Partially because of how increased content means increased complexity in an RPG script, and partially because budget is often determined by features like voice acting, which would be used to figure ROI. You don't just take out $50k of voice acting and then throw it at $50k worth of more script. You take out $50k of voice acting, adjust your sales expectations based on the fact that nobody talks, and then you probably take money away from the script because you just killed so many potential sales

    Wyborn on
    dN0T6ur.png
  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    Seriously.

    Doesn't matter how careful you are. If you are making a deal with a fucking Pride demon, you're an idiot. How careful a person is doesn't even enter the equation.

    It's plain idiocy.

    Agreed, but as I said
    It bears mentioning that the fade is a very different place from Thedas, and that people who aren't the protagonist are often confused/disoriented/mentally weaker there

    The fade is dangerous for many reasons. You can trust no one and possibly not even yourself to act clearly there. That was the point of that quest.

    How easily someone is fooled in the fade isn't really representative for how they act in the real world.

    Basically

    What happens in the fade stays in the fade

    But that's not true in the case of mages.

    They can alter reality in the same manner that spirits can alter the Fade, which is why demons prefer mages to corpes, animals, and normal humans.

    And blood mages can literally tear the Veil to allow spirits to enter the normal world without possessing someone.

    Without blood magic, you need lyrium to enter the Fade without being asleep.

    Look at how Warden's Keep fell. Nothing good comes from blood magic, ever. And before anyone mentions Connor at Redcliff, remember how that whole situation got started in the first place.

    steam_sig.png

    Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    I don't think Warden's Keep was blood magic in the traditional sense

    That was blood magic that involved manipulating the taint of the Blight

    That is approximately one billion times worse; blood mages seem to do all right as Wardens in general

    Wyborn on
    dN0T6ur.png
  • Fleur de AlysFleur de Alys Biohacker Registered User regular
    Nothing good comes from blood magic, ever.
    Lots of bad things coming from Noun X does not mean that nothing good comes from Noun X.

    You can say Noun X is usually more bad than good. You can say that the potential for bad is greater than the potential for good with respect to Noun X. But it does not logically follow that because Noun X can result in many bad things, Noun X can't lead to anything good.

    In this specific case with Noun X being blood magic, it's trivially disproved. A Blood Magic Hawke can do many good things in exercising that power. And the fact that alternate routes (other power sources) exist is irrelevant for that point.

    But yeah, it's usually bad news. Really bad news.

    Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    Blood Magic is really powerful magic

    But, and this is important

    So long as it's learned, from another mage or from a book or even from a demon, rather than imparted as part of a pact with a maleficent force, it's not effectively different from any other form of magic. Kill a man with a fireball or force him to slit his own throat, the man is still dead (though the latter death is less cruel). Blood magic itself doesn't drive you crazy, demonic forces do.

    The one key thing about blood magic is that, potentially, it's just more powerful than other forms of magic. Blood is the most powerful catalytic component there is, or close enough.

    It's just that it has a bad rep, so crazy people tend to be the only ones who use it, so it has a bad rep.

    Wyborn on
    dN0T6ur.png
  • AspectVoidAspectVoid Registered User regular
    Wyborn wrote: »
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.

    Man, it's really not that clear cut

    Partially because of how increased content means increased complexity in an RPG script, and partially because budget is often determined by features like voice acting, which would be used to figure ROI. You don't just take out $50k of voice acting and then throw it at $50k worth of more script. You take out $50k of voice acting, adjust your sales expectations based on the fact that nobody talks, and then you probably take money away from the script because you just killed so many potential sales

    Which, honestly, isn't really true if you take a look at the Torment Kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) or the Project Eternity kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) which were among the quickest and most highly funded kickstarter projects ever. There is a market for such RPGs, and if you develop toward your market as opposed to developing toward completely unrealistic Publisher goals (see Square Enix and how they feel Tomb Raider's 3.4 million sales were bad) you'll be fine.

    PSN|AspectVoid
  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    AspectVoid wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.

    Man, it's really not that clear cut

    Partially because of how increased content means increased complexity in an RPG script, and partially because budget is often determined by features like voice acting, which would be used to figure ROI. You don't just take out $50k of voice acting and then throw it at $50k worth of more script. You take out $50k of voice acting, adjust your sales expectations based on the fact that nobody talks, and then you probably take money away from the script because you just killed so many potential sales

    Which, honestly, isn't really true if you take a look at the Torment Kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) or the Project Eternity kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) which were among the quickest and most highly funded kickstarter projects ever. There is a market for such RPGs, and if you develop toward your market as opposed to developing toward completely unrealistic Publisher goals (see Square Enix and how they feel Tomb Raider's 3.4 million sales were bad) you'll be fine.

    You're not going to make a Dragon Age game that way

    It can't happen, the production values in Dragon Age are too high and it involves too many people and the games are too complex

    It works for Torment and Eternity specifically because they are games that can be made on that kind of budget and they're not aiming to sell a couple of million copies at 60 USD a pop

    dN0T6ur.png
  • PreciousBodilyFluidsPreciousBodilyFluids Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    AspectVoid wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.

    Man, it's really not that clear cut

    Partially because of how increased content means increased complexity in an RPG script, and partially because budget is often determined by features like voice acting, which would be used to figure ROI. You don't just take out $50k of voice acting and then throw it at $50k worth of more script. You take out $50k of voice acting, adjust your sales expectations based on the fact that nobody talks, and then you probably take money away from the script because you just killed so many potential sales

    Which, honestly, isn't really true if you take a look at the Torment Kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) or the Project Eternity kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) which were among the quickest and most highly funded kickstarter projects ever. There is a market for such RPGs, and if you develop toward your market as opposed to developing toward completely unrealistic Publisher goals (see Square Enix and how they feel Tomb Raider's 3.4 million sales were bad) you'll be fine.

    There is absolutely a market for such games.

    But I would argue that that market is smaller than the potential market reached by a broadly marketed game with full voice acting. And the budget for games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age are simply too high to be covered by a kickstarter alone, and that's not just because of voice acting.

    They NEED the broader appeal

    PreciousBodilyFluids on
  • Toxic PickleToxic Pickle Thash grape! Registered User regular
    .
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Blood Magic is really powerful magic

    But, and this is important

    So long as it's learned, from another mage or from a book or even from a demon, rather than imparted as part of a pact with a maleficent force, it's not effectively different from any other form of magic. Kill a man with a fireball or force him to slit his own throat, the man is still dead (though the latter death is less cruel). Blood magic itself doesn't drive you crazy, demonic forces do.

    The one key thing about blood magic is that, potentially, it's just more powerful than other forms of magic. Blood is the most powerful catalytic component there is, or close enough.

    It's just that it has a bad rep, so crazy people tend to be the only ones who use it, so it has a bad rep.

    The key point about blood magic that seems to constantly be missed is that it isn't what you can do with blood magic that makes it evil, it's the power behind it.

    Using one's own blood to fuel magic isn't necessarily evil, but it's a very short bridge to using the blood of others because your own supply is limited.

  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    .
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Blood Magic is really powerful magic

    But, and this is important

    So long as it's learned, from another mage or from a book or even from a demon, rather than imparted as part of a pact with a maleficent force, it's not effectively different from any other form of magic. Kill a man with a fireball or force him to slit his own throat, the man is still dead (though the latter death is less cruel). Blood magic itself doesn't drive you crazy, demonic forces do.

    The one key thing about blood magic is that, potentially, it's just more powerful than other forms of magic. Blood is the most powerful catalytic component there is, or close enough.

    It's just that it has a bad rep, so crazy people tend to be the only ones who use it, so it has a bad rep.

    The key point about blood magic that seems to constantly be missed is that it isn't what you can do with blood magic that makes it evil, it's the power behind it.

    Using one's own blood to fuel magic isn't necessarily evil, but it's a very short bridge to using the blood of others because your own supply is limited.

    Sure

    But on the same note, it's also a short bridge from setting darkspawn on fire to, say, setting the city guard on fire

    dN0T6ur.png
  • XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    There are TONS of Mobile Blood Mage Power Cells walking around. They're called Qunari. Just tap into one of those. They're bigger, more bood, win-win!

  • BlackjackBlackjack Registered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.
    jdarksun wrote: »
    And in DA:O, I played as The Warden and stopped the Blight. Oh, you did that too? The Origin stories were a nice touch and all, but not really anything more than that.
    All they did was allow you to customize your character? To put your own special spin on something and make it yours?

    Wow, it's, like, you'd be able to roleplay in a roleplaying game.
    I'm able to customize Shepard and Hawke too...
    You can pick the default, high-resolution look or futz around with sliders to get something sub-par. Minor cosmetic alteration is not character customization.

    Haha. Skin tone, hair, facial hair, cheekbone structure, eyes, eyebrows, mouth, nose...

    You can pretty much create any face. That's not a "minor cosmetic alteration" bro

    And how is that any different from DA:O?

    In DA:O all of the faces were sub-par, even the defaults!

    camo_sig2.png

    3DS: 1607-3034-6970
  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    AspectVoid wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.

    Man, it's really not that clear cut

    Partially because of how increased content means increased complexity in an RPG script, and partially because budget is often determined by features like voice acting, which would be used to figure ROI. You don't just take out $50k of voice acting and then throw it at $50k worth of more script. You take out $50k of voice acting, adjust your sales expectations based on the fact that nobody talks, and then you probably take money away from the script because you just killed so many potential sales

    Which, honestly, isn't really true if you take a look at the Torment Kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) or the Project Eternity kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) which were among the quickest and most highly funded kickstarter projects ever. There is a market for such RPGs, and if you develop toward your market as opposed to developing toward completely unrealistic Publisher goals (see Square Enix and how they feel Tomb Raider's 3.4 million sales were bad) you'll be fine.

    Do you honestly think the reason those games were funded so quickly was because they weren't going to have voice acting in them, or was it because of the pedigree of the teams involved in the games?

  • NeadenNeaden Registered User regular
    .
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Blood Magic is really powerful magic

    But, and this is important

    So long as it's learned, from another mage or from a book or even from a demon, rather than imparted as part of a pact with a maleficent force, it's not effectively different from any other form of magic. Kill a man with a fireball or force him to slit his own throat, the man is still dead (though the latter death is less cruel). Blood magic itself doesn't drive you crazy, demonic forces do.

    The one key thing about blood magic is that, potentially, it's just more powerful than other forms of magic. Blood is the most powerful catalytic component there is, or close enough.

    It's just that it has a bad rep, so crazy people tend to be the only ones who use it, so it has a bad rep.

    The key point about blood magic that seems to constantly be missed is that it isn't what you can do with blood magic that makes it evil, it's the power behind it.

    Using one's own blood to fuel magic isn't necessarily evil, but it's a very short bridge to using the blood of others because your own supply is limited.
    See this is why I wish that was at least a temptation for the player at some point if you were a blockage. The lore has being a blood mage as being do different from any other type of magic but then the mechanics don't even back it up a little.

  • Toxic PickleToxic Pickle Thash grape! Registered User regular
    Neaden wrote: »
    .
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Blood Magic is really powerful magic

    But, and this is important

    So long as it's learned, from another mage or from a book or even from a demon, rather than imparted as part of a pact with a maleficent force, it's not effectively different from any other form of magic. Kill a man with a fireball or force him to slit his own throat, the man is still dead (though the latter death is less cruel). Blood magic itself doesn't drive you crazy, demonic forces do.

    The one key thing about blood magic is that, potentially, it's just more powerful than other forms of magic. Blood is the most powerful catalytic component there is, or close enough.

    It's just that it has a bad rep, so crazy people tend to be the only ones who use it, so it has a bad rep.

    The key point about blood magic that seems to constantly be missed is that it isn't what you can do with blood magic that makes it evil, it's the power behind it.

    Using one's own blood to fuel magic isn't necessarily evil, but it's a very short bridge to using the blood of others because your own supply is limited.

    See this is why I wish that was at least a temptation for the player at some point if you were a blockage. The lore has being a blood mage as being do different from any other type of magic but then the mechanics don't even back it up a little.

    Mobile posting, sir? :lol:

    Honestly, this was a big problem for me as well, especially in DA2 but certainly also in DA:O... there is no consequence at all to being a blood mage. Hell, people don't even recognize that you are one at all. I can sorta see The Warden getting away with it, but Hawke? No. Hell, Hawke just being a mage at all really screws with the consistency of the story, much less practicing blood magic. It's mentioned in passing a few times, but mostly everyone just seems to ignore it, even before he's become the Hero of Kirkwall.

  • AspectVoidAspectVoid Registered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    AspectVoid wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.

    Man, it's really not that clear cut

    Partially because of how increased content means increased complexity in an RPG script, and partially because budget is often determined by features like voice acting, which would be used to figure ROI. You don't just take out $50k of voice acting and then throw it at $50k worth of more script. You take out $50k of voice acting, adjust your sales expectations based on the fact that nobody talks, and then you probably take money away from the script because you just killed so many potential sales

    Which, honestly, isn't really true if you take a look at the Torment Kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) or the Project Eternity kickstarter (no Voice Acting RPG) which were among the quickest and most highly funded kickstarter projects ever. There is a market for such RPGs, and if you develop toward your market as opposed to developing toward completely unrealistic Publisher goals (see Square Enix and how they feel Tomb Raider's 3.4 million sales were bad) you'll be fine.

    Do you honestly think the reason those games were funded so quickly was because they weren't going to have voice acting in them, or was it because of the pedigree of the teams involved in the games?

    I think its because there is a market of people who want quality RPGs and don't give a flying animal about voice acting. If a game is good, the game is good.

    It all goes back to targeting your audience correctly. Lets face it, Video Games are movies now. There are 2 to 4 a year that are a huge hit, another 10 or 15 that make a good profit for a sequel, and dozens that crash and burn like nothing else. Publishers need to quit aiming for that two to four a year huge hit with every single game. There is a lot to be said to have a steady, good, and profitable product without trying to make every product a huge hit.

    PSN|AspectVoid
  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    We wander further and further from the point I was making

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    dN0T6ur.png
  • Toxic PickleToxic Pickle Thash grape! Registered User regular
    Wyborn wrote: »
    We wander further and further from the point I was making

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    Which is wrong.

    Voice acting costs a lot of money, and if not paying voice actors, that budget can go for other things, such as art, writing, whatever.

    So given an equal amount of money, a game without voice acting will have more content, in some form or another, than one with.

  • PreciousBodilyFluidsPreciousBodilyFluids Registered User regular
    Wyborn wrote: »
    We wander further and further from the point I was making

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    Which is wrong.

    Voice acting costs a lot of money, and if not paying voice actors, that budget can go for other things, such as art, writing, whatever.

    So given an equal amount of money, a game without voice acting will have more content, in some form or another, than one with.

    Did you read Wyborn's posts at all...?
    Wyborn wrote: »
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Taking out voices altogether would not get us significantly bigger games as a consequence. Only hiring more writers or extending dev time would do that.
    Less money spent on voice acting is more money that can be spent elsewhere. Taking out voices does indeed mean they could hire more writers or extend dev time.

    Man, it's really not that clear cut

    Partially because of how increased content means increased complexity in an RPG script, and partially because budget is often determined by features like voice acting, which would be used to figure ROI. You don't just take out $50k of voice acting and then throw it at $50k worth of more script. You take out $50k of voice acting, adjust your sales expectations based on the fact that nobody talks, and then you probably take money away from the script because you just killed so many potential sales

  • Toxic PickleToxic Pickle Thash grape! Registered User regular

    Did you read Wyborn's posts at all...?

    Yes I did.
    Wyborn wrote: »

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    And I called this wrong.

  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    I swear vsove made a post about exactly this topic not too long ago, and that would either correct my point or support it

    But I wouldn't know where to look to find it

    Wyborn on
    dN0T6ur.png
  • PreciousBodilyFluidsPreciousBodilyFluids Registered User regular
    I...

    Okay.

  • BlackjackBlackjack Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    Wyborn wrote: »
    We wander further and further from the point I was making

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    Assuming sufficient dev time, not having voice acting could absolutely get you more content. What I'd argue is that it wouldn't be worthwhile content.

    edit: I'm assuming we're talking about just for the main character. Am I reading this whole thing wrong?

    Blackjack on
    camo_sig2.png

    3DS: 1607-3034-6970
  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    By our good buddy vsove:
    You will probably never see another BioWare game with as much dialogue as DA:O.

    And folks will like to say 'oh it's because of VO, if you got rid of the protagonist having a voice you'd have just as much!' No. Shut up. Stop. Your opinions are bad.

    However, the lengthy dev cycle and engine changes at no point required the writers to completely throw out what they'd been doing so they had a REALLY LONG TIME to write all of that dialogue.

    And that's something we'll probably never have again. And honestly it's not a bad thing - that game's development went on far too long, and some stuff I'd argue was made worse because people had time to second-guess their decisions.

    DA2 was too far in the other direction. This one? This one feels okay. But yeah - you'll never see the dialogue quantity of DA:O again. What you -may- see is more dialogue than our other titles, but with a lot of it pulled out of main path for pacing reasons.

    Well

    Not quite what I was saying, but the gist of it is in there

    "Taking money away from voice acting = more money for writing" is not good math, and the whole thing isn't that simple

    dN0T6ur.png
  • BlackjackBlackjack Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    There was also a dev post on the official forums a while ago that illustrated how the dialogue wheel had just as many (and sometimes, more) options per conversation as DA:O

    Blackjack on
    camo_sig2.png

    3DS: 1607-3034-6970
  • AcharenusAcharenus Registered User regular

    Did you read Wyborn's posts at all...?

    Yes I did.
    Wyborn wrote: »

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    And I called this wrong.

    Well...yeh in an ideal world you're correct.

    This is earth though and wyborns right that having or not having voice acting is obviously factored into how much of a budget the game has. Removing voice acting doesn't make that money go elsewhere on the project it makes that money go back into the publishers pocket.

  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    Blackjack wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    We wander further and further from the point I was making

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    Assuming sufficient dev time, not having voice acting could absolutely get you more content. What I'd argue is that it wouldn't be worthwhile content.

    edit: I'm assuming we're talking about just for the main character. Am I reading this whole thing wrong?

    Even more dialogue for just the main character would result in that geometric progression of having to write more dialogue for your companions, too, and they are voiced in the scenario you just described

    dN0T6ur.png
  • BlackjackBlackjack Registered User regular
    Wyborn wrote: »
    Blackjack wrote: »
    Wyborn wrote: »
    We wander further and further from the point I was making

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    Assuming sufficient dev time, not having voice acting could absolutely get you more content. What I'd argue is that it wouldn't be worthwhile content.

    edit: I'm assuming we're talking about just for the main character. Am I reading this whole thing wrong?

    Even more dialogue for just the main character would result in that geometric progression of having to write more dialogue for your companions, too, and they are voiced in the scenario you just described

    Yes...? I never suggested otherwise. I'm agreeing with you, actually.

    camo_sig2.png

    3DS: 1607-3034-6970
  • SpoitSpoit *twitch twitch* Registered User regular
    I'm sure @c2b in all his newsbotting has an article or two about the costs of voice acting vs not VA.

    Which is beside the point I was trying to make in the first place. Having the actual sentence allows them to be a lot clearer about what you're actually saying than a couple words and a smiley face, if anyone remembers that article about the dialogue stance system from like a week before wyborn started playing through DA2.

    Or heck, even without bringing in the descriptive paragraphs of something like PST, how about comparing something along the lines of [use murder knife] in DAO compared to just having a flashing red icon in the corner of the screen

    steam_sig.png
  • Toxic PickleToxic Pickle Thash grape! Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    Wyborn wrote: »
    By our good buddy vsove:
    You will probably never see another BioWare game with as much dialogue as DA:O.

    And folks will like to say 'oh it's because of VO, if you got rid of the protagonist having a voice you'd have just as much!' No. Shut up. Stop. Your opinions are bad.

    However, the lengthy dev cycle and engine changes at no point required the writers to completely throw out what they'd been doing so they had a REALLY LONG TIME to write all of that dialogue.

    And that's something we'll probably never have again. And honestly it's not a bad thing - that game's development went on far too long, and some stuff I'd argue was made worse because people had time to second-guess their decisions.

    DA2 was too far in the other direction. This one? This one feels okay. But yeah - you'll never see the dialogue quantity of DA:O again. What you -may- see is more dialogue than our other titles, but with a lot of it pulled out of main path for pacing reasons.

    Well

    Not quite what I was saying, but the gist of it is in there

    "Taking money away from voice acting = more money for writing" is not good math, and the whole thing isn't that simple

    Vsove's point was specifically on giving the protagonist a voice vs not, which isn't nearly the same as removing voice acting entirely, which significantly changes the way a game is made.

    If your point is specifically that "Less voice does not equal more writing in the same quantity" then yes, I think that's most likely true. However, removing voice acting does potentially allow for more player choice and story divergence, because the cost of that goes up exponentially with voice acting.

    That said, game devs have gotten really good at scripting and recording voice for these things, and lots of people (and let's face it, game reviewers) require voice acting that few if any big budget developers are going to take the chance of not including it in the name of a deeper RPG.

    Which is why I, personally, am pinning a lot of hope on Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity.

    Toxic Pickle on
  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    Man, that red icon meant you were about to go into a combat sequence every time

    The icons in DA2 were plenty descriptive about tone. They even had different 'mean' icons for 'blunt' (gavel) versus 'harsh' (fist)

    dN0T6ur.png
  • Fleur de AlysFleur de Alys Biohacker Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    I think that myth took hold in people with the Elder Scrolls games. In the move from Morrowind to Oblivion where the directive was given that all dialogue be voiced, dialogue options plummeted. Like, from an average of around 15 per character to something more like 0-3.

    Thing is, this wasn't done in a vacuum. The designers were also looking to get rid of a lot of the "generic" content that most of the dialogue consisted of. Voice acting got the blame at the time, and still does today, but that wasn't really it.

    Modern game design intentionally reduces the amount of text that must be read to play the game. That's just how it goes. Bethesda, Bioware (including Black Isle titles), and Square used to rely pretty much completely on written text to convey their games, and all three of them have moved to pushing written words into "codexes" and in-game books. Meanwhile, FFXIII probably has more dialogue in it than anything in the PS1 era or earlier, even though it's all spoken, and I know Mass Effect has more than Baldur's Gate, even if you might have to play through many (many...) times to see most of the permutations.

    There will always be small-budget titles and "throw-back" offerings, but really, as a community, it's unhealthy to descend into "get these new-fangled vidjama-games off my lawn" thinking. Move forward with the times, or become bitter and feel old.

    Fleur de Alys on
    Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
  • SpoitSpoit *twitch twitch* Registered User regular
    Bethesda games have dialogue? :P

    steam_sig.png
  • AspectVoidAspectVoid Registered User regular
    Wyborn wrote: »
    We wander further and further from the point I was making

    You can't get more content in big-budget BioWare-style games by removing voices

    THat's all

    All I am saying is that maybe Bioware should move one of their IPs away from big budget. Mass Effect is a big budget Triple-A game, and it is awesome for it. That's great. I love me some Mass Effect. I am planning an ME1 - 3 run for sometime this spring/summer. I will love every minute of it.

    But does every game they produce have to be big budget? Could Bioware make a Moderate Budget B-game that makes them a profit while spending less money, uses a smaller team, and is still good fun? Kind of like how Obsidian is using a smaller, B-Team and crowd funding to make Project Eternity while their A-Team is working on South Park?

    PSN|AspectVoid
  • WybornWyborn GET EQUIPPED Registered User regular
    Wyborn wrote: »
    By our good buddy vsove:
    You will probably never see another BioWare game with as much dialogue as DA:O.

    And folks will like to say 'oh it's because of VO, if you got rid of the protagonist having a voice you'd have just as much!' No. Shut up. Stop. Your opinions are bad.

    However, the lengthy dev cycle and engine changes at no point required the writers to completely throw out what they'd been doing so they had a REALLY LONG TIME to write all of that dialogue.

    And that's something we'll probably never have again. And honestly it's not a bad thing - that game's development went on far too long, and some stuff I'd argue was made worse because people had time to second-guess their decisions.

    DA2 was too far in the other direction. This one? This one feels okay. But yeah - you'll never see the dialogue quantity of DA:O again. What you -may- see is more dialogue than our other titles, but with a lot of it pulled out of main path for pacing reasons.

    Well

    Not quite what I was saying, but the gist of it is in there

    "Taking money away from voice acting = more money for writing" is not good math, and the whole thing isn't that simple

    Vsove's point was specifically on giving the protagonist a voice vs not, which isn't nearly the same as removing voice acting entirely, which significantly changes the way a game is made.

    If your point is specifically that "Less voice does not equal more writing in the same quantity" then yes, I think that's most likely true. However, removing voice acting does potentially allow for more player choice and story divergence, because the cost of that goes up exponentially with voice acting.

    That said, game devs have gotten really good at scripting and recording voice for these things, and lots of people (and let's face it, game reviewers) require voice acting that few if any big budget developers are going to take the chance of not including it in the name of a deeper RPG.

    Which is why I, personally, am pinning a lot of hope on Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity.

    Man, cost doesn't go up exponentially with voice acting! Voice acting actually costs less per word the more words you have. With enough content you end up spending more money hiring writers and keeping them employed long enough to write all that stuff than you would have just having a smaller amount of dialogue voiced. I don't know how high that amount would be, but it does exist

    Player choice nad story divergence actually does increase the workload on writers in a non-linear way, though, because the number of variables they have to account for necessarily increases unless they severely cut back on the amount that player choice affects story progression. Every choice you make needs to be reflected in the script, even if only briefly, and the increased workload for small amounts of content gets pretty severe if it affects the rest of the game in any way whatsoever.

    Writing is expensive. I would be willing to bet you a game on Steam or GOG that Project Eternity or Wasteland or Torment will not have anything approaching the same amount of dialogue as Origins did, because they don't have the money to hire that many writers for that long.

    Or at least I think they don't.

    dN0T6ur.png
  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    I think the ending rather colored my memories of the rest of the game, i'm quite enjoying this replay. It helps a lot i'm going mostly sarcastic, while rivaling Anders and Merrill. I think my first playthrough I basically inadvertently did all the choices to end up with the most irritating outcome possible.

    Playing on casual and knowing ahead of time about all the re-used environments doesn't hurt either.

  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    Back to why blood magic is always bad.

    Simply the act of using blood magic weakens the Veil. It doesn't matter if the user is Goody McTwoshoes, Paragon of all Paragons, and they only use their own blood to fuel spells that make sparkles and rainbows, it still weakens the Veil. Which allows demons easier access to the world.

    So, even the Warden and Hawke, with their protagonist powers, make the world a shittier place by using blood magic, for any reason. Sure, it doesn't affect Hawke, the Warden, and Merril, but what about that five year old girl who is a mage? It's now easier for her to get possessed against her will, because you wanted to make it easier to set a darkspawn on fire.

    So again, blood magic is bad.

    Always.

    steam_sig.png

    Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    Wyborn wrote: »
    I don't think Warden's Keep was blood magic in the traditional sense

    That was blood magic that involved manipulating the taint of the Blight

    That is approximately one billion times worse; blood mages seem to do all right as Wardens in general

    I didn't mean the blood powers that the Warden can get.

    I was referring to how the Veil got torn there. The mage summoned demons, which requires blood magic (lyrium can't do it), and he tore the Veil, giving demons free access to the area.

    steam_sig.png

    Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Sign In or Register to comment.