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dreffen posted:Isn't Inquisition falling into the same "accessible to new players" hole, though? In what way?
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Jun 21, 2014 15:44
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It's hard to see how Inquisition could be as hard for new players to get into as Mass Effect though, since it's not directly following the actions of the same central character for all three games.
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Jun 21, 2014 15:44
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dreffen posted:Isn't Inquisition falling into the same "accessible to new players" hole, though? Every game should be accessible to new players, by that standard. That's why we used to have difficulty levels with meaningful consequences.
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Jun 21, 2014 15:54
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Oh I'm not arguing against it I just thought I'd heard/read E3 coverage that led me to believe they were doing the same thing they did for ME3, saying "the third game is a great time to jump into the series" or something to that effect. Though you're right Inquisition is a bit of a different case than Mass Effect. dreffen fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jun 21, 2014 |
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Jun 21, 2014 16:01
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It was only weird for ME3 to focus on bringing new blood as its people coming into the Sheppard story at its conclusion. With Inquisition its just another story in the same Dragon Age world in which you'd benefit from skipping the nonsense of DA2 and maybe Origins.
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Jun 21, 2014 16:25
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Crabtree posted:It was only weird for ME3 to focus on bringing new blood as its people coming into the Sheppard story at its conclusion. With Inquisition its just another story in the same Dragon Age world in which you'd benefit from skipping the nonsense of DA2 and maybe Origins. The problem is, they seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. It's the problem with all the Bioware expanded universe comics and tie in novels and bullshit like that. That's how you get poo poo like Kai Leng. Bioware wants to constantly introduce new players but they also want to fit in all this extra stuff that you'll only understand if you play all the games/read all the stories.
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Jun 21, 2014 17:18
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Mordiceius posted:The problem is, they seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. It's the problem with all the Bioware expanded universe comics and tie in novels and bullshit like that. That's how you get poo poo like Kai Leng.
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Jun 21, 2014 17:20
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paragon1 posted:I cackle like a madman whenever I activate the Jade Golem Transformation style. That's normal, right? gently caress yes.
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Jun 21, 2014 18:03
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For the odd person reading this thread who hasn't played Origins, the Ultimate Edition - Origins, Awakening, and all the DLC - is on Steam's daily sale for $7.50 USD.
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Jun 21, 2014 18:04
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Mordiceius posted:The problem is, they seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. It's the problem with all the Bioware expanded universe comics and tie in novels and bullshit like that. That's how you get poo poo like Kai Leng. Game writers these days are pretty bad about that. It's like they want to be genre writers working with a huge, complicated setting so they make all these external stories. That wouldn't be bad on its own (well, if they actually had the talent to write well enough to stand without gameplay to fall back on), but they decide to have it all tie together with the actual games. Then we end up with all kinds changes to the story and references to important events that only make sense if you spent extra time and money reading substandard books/comic/whatever else like a really boring homework assignment. Even when the stories actually are better written than the actual games' story (DAII set a really low bar), nobody wants to need extra study to figure out why your returning character has suddenly completely changed and keeps referencing events that never happened in-game. That's not even getting into the fact that these expanded universe materials shamelessly retcon story elements from the games, tie together characters at random, add in ridiculous "explanations" for story events that didn't need explaining, toss out whoever they personally dislike, and whatever else at the whims of whatever writer is at the helm and the main works still have to include them. It's like what you'd get if crappy fanfiction writers had actual authority. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Jun 21, 2014 |
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Jun 21, 2014 18:27
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I'm assuming the Keep system will be the closest thing BioWare has to succeeding in their have cake and eat it dreams. All the basic info players from the past games would know and want at their command to write their own game history, while new comers can find out the nitty-gritty of say the Mage-Templar war without having to witness all of the failed ambition that led to it in game form. Problem is will it work and is this going to happen again in a likely sequel? Just cut out the effort of programing porting changes in another story and just let the player made history be Keep fluff only.
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Jun 21, 2014 18:35
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I think that will depend entirely on how much Bioware decides they want to keep making interconnected sequels. Inter-game connectivity and shared history worked reasonably well for the Mass Effect series because that series focused on a small number of characters (let's be honest - Shepard, Tali, Wrex, and Legion are the only party members who have a truly significant story impact involving the player's decisions), takes place over a short span of in-game time, and the decisions the player makes are inevitably overshadowed by larger events and characters throughout the trilogy. Dragon Age can't really say the same. Each game is widely separated, geographically and in time. DA2 ended up not mattering much, but Origins left the suggestion that Ferelden was dramatically changed by the player's actions. Even with the Keep, there's going to be a certain point where either player choices outside the game they're made in have to be minimized to reduce the complexity of the Keep and game software, workload of writing all the different possibilities, and story boundaries/requirements created by the things the player has influence over, or the whole thing needs to go and if Bioware wants to keep making games in the same setting will need to start adapting the mythic approach where each game barely impacts the next, due to the influences of time or geography. Dungeons and Dragons RPGs are a good example of the latter approach. The old gold box games, the Baldur's Gate series, Planescape: Torment, and the Neverwinter Nights games all more or less canonically happened, but the setting is so vast that none of the games beyond the Baldur's Gate games impact each other to any notable degree and that's perfectly fine. No one runs around Neverwinter Nights 2 wanting desperately to know what exactly happened in NWN1 and what happened to every character from it. NWN1 and its expansions told their stories, concluded them, and NWN2 told its own story rather than be beholden to another game. I personally think this whole "import your save from one game to the next!" thing is a passing fad outside cases of expansion packs. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jun 21, 2014 |
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Jun 21, 2014 18:48
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Finally finished my max casualties run. I was already down to Alistair, Oghren and Dog after picking him up in Return to Ostagar (by rights he should have been dead anyway because I never got the cure, but whatever). I executed Loghain and put Anora and Alistair on the throne, Morrigan came back to offer her deal and was refused, and I gave Oghren soap and rotten onions until he tried to kill me so I "killed" him. Oghren's death is handled weird. You say you'll kill him and he's just...deleted right after you pop out of the dialogue screen. Doesn't even let you retrieve his gear. Left Alistair at the gates and went after the dragon with Dog, but for some reason after dog went down the first time he despawned and I couldn't call him back, even with the dog-summon mod. He later showed up with Alistair at the gates along with all the Ash Wraith's I picked up during the Urn quest, but this meant that my dwarven rogue was the only playable character I had for the last leg of the game, and that really ratcheted up the challenge for fighting the Generals. It took only the deaths of five Redcliffe soldiers to save the Alienage, but Shiani was the only elf left alive. It took the deaths of 40 dwarves to finally secure the Market District, and the Hurlock General with the Axe of the Vashoth and the Corruption helm was a nightmare to beat--much more dangerous than any number of ogres. Even at level 22, using a mod to get Awakening Abilties in Origins so I could have Legion Scout and its strength/constitution buff, he could knock off a third of my dwarf's health in a single swing and simply would not get stunned for anything. I kept summoning wolves and bears because he could two-shot the spider. Definitely the longest part of the quest. Then I brought the Redcliffe soldiers out to take back the palace district, and thirty five laid down their lives as we picked the emissaries apart. Then I summoned the templars at the doors of fort Drakon and made it through with six remaining. Fort Drakon itself required I just straight up stealth the whole place until I got to the exit and then use traps and acid flasks to burn down all the enemies close enough to put the party in combat mode--once they were gone I just walked out the door. Did the same with the next floor, laying down traps and luring the hurlock and ogres back into them, but the ogres pushed me far enough back that I triggered the master assassin and his acolytes, which made things a bit more exciting. Still, dropped them all and went after the dragon. Now I summoned the werewolves, and Swiftrunner led the charge. He and my bear tanked the archdemon while I hammered on the ballistae, unjamming them as necessary. Really the werewolves made this the easiest part because most of the darkspawn never even got close to me. At the final leg, when there were no ballistae in range anymore, I just meleed him, using whirlwind and acid flasks to chew up the darkspawn if the crowd got too thick. I think there were still a few werewolves left alive at the end, though I'm pretty sure Swiftrunner himself was dead because I didn't see him anymore. Sacrificed to slay the arch demon; Alistair led the funeral; not sure if normally other characters get to say something but in my case Gorim was the only character beside Alistair to speak. My dwarf was restored to full honors and buried beside her father, while also getting an honorary tomb next to Garahel in Weisshaupt. The dwarves named her a paragon and a statue was built for her in Amaranthine. Branka went crazy with the golems and Bhelen finally had to turn against her, and now she's sealed herself off from the world; the werewolves went nuts and disappeared; Cullen became the most brutal and cruel knight commander in recent memory; and Morrigan moved straight to Orlais, no baby-bump to be seen. Honestly, I think this was my favorite run so far. If I were to do it again, I'd save slaughtering the elves until after I'd bought something like 800 elf roots, because without magical healing I was going through poultices like a vacuum cleaner in a sand-box. marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jun 21, 2014 |
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Jun 21, 2014 19:01
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Lotish posted:Finally finished my max casualties run. I was already down to Alistair, Oghren and Dog after picking him up in Return to Ostagar (by rights he should have been dead anyway because I never got the cure, but whatever). I executed Loghain and put Anora and Alistair on the throne, Morrigan came back to offer her deal and was refused, and I gave Oghren soap and rotten onions until he tried to kill me so I "killed" him. Oghren's death is handled weird. You say you'll kill him and he's just...deleted right after you pop out of the dialogue screen. Doesn't even let you retrieve his gear. That's an awesome runthrough. Did you also have Alistair at max rivalry? And he still gave you a nice eulogy? BTW, Gorim is the only other one to speak at your funeral. I've only done the ultimate sacrifice with a dwarf noble, so I don't know if others speak at the other origins endings.
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Jun 21, 2014 19:09
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Lotish posted:Finally finished my max casualties run. I was already down to Alistair, Oghren and Dog after picking him up in Return to Ostagar (by rights he should have been dead anyway because I never got the cure, but whatever). I executed Loghain and put Anora and Alistair on the throne, Morrigan came back to offer her deal and was refused, and I gave Oghren soap and rotten onions until he tried to kill me so I "killed" him. Oghren's death is handled weird. You say you'll kill him and he's just...deleted right after you pop out of the dialogue screen. Doesn't even let you retrieve his gear. Oghren somehow manages to survive into Awakening if you kill him in Origins, just like Leliana and Anders manage to survive into DA2 no matter what you do. You get a special dialogue option with him and everything, where he reveals that he woke up hours later, naked and confused. So where did his clothes go? 
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Jun 21, 2014 19:37
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So, I'm trying to actually play through DA2. I've had some success going in short bursts so I don't get too angry about it. Having played the game for more than two hours, so far I like the UI quite a bit, and the branching advancement stuff seems kind of cool. I like Aveline well enough. The encounters run entirely too long with little other than waves of basic mooks coming at you and spawning on top of you a lot. Individual combat beats aren't too bad, though. It just sucks to clear a wave of guys only to have more dudes suddenly appear. Overall I'm sad, cause everything I've heard about the story I'm going into is bad, but there's actually some nice iterative quality of life stuff that I really hope is in the sequel.
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Jun 21, 2014 21:11
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Well yeah, you've hit on the fact that mechanically it's really pretty good, they had some very good ideas with combat but they didn't actually put anything interesting in it and that's what's sad about it.
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Jun 21, 2014 21:19
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Sylphosaurus posted:Basically what Bungie did with the Halo series then? Yeah, I'll pass on that, thank you very much.
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Jun 21, 2014 21:32
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bobtheconqueror posted:So, I'm trying to actually play through DA2. I've had some success going in short bursts so I don't get too angry about it. Having played the game for more than two hours, so far I like the UI quite a bit, and the branching advancement stuff seems kind of cool. I like Aveline well enough. The encounters run entirely too long with little other than waves of basic mooks coming at you and spawning on top of you a lot. Individual combat beats aren't too bad, though. It just sucks to clear a wave of guys only to have more dudes suddenly appear. Someone once posted that what truly truly went wrong in DA2's development was that fact the entire dev team fell victim to GSF3. All the writers adn leads and editors are all friends, so no one wanted to be the one to say "this writing is utter poo poo fix it."
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Jun 21, 2014 21:33
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HapiMerchant posted:Someone once posted that what truly truly went wrong in DA2's development was that fact the entire dev team fell victim to GSF3. All the writers adn leads and editors are all friends, so no one wanted to be the one to say "this writing is utter poo poo fix it." What does GSF3 mean?
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Jun 21, 2014 21:34
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marktheando posted:What does GSF3 mean? Geek Social Fallacy 3: Friendship above all. Personally I think there's quite a bit of Geek Social Fallacy 1 and 2 here as well: If a friend criticizes me, they aren't actaully my friend, See bioware's dev teams are all buddy buddy with each other, and the inter-team relationships are all buddy buddy too. Hepler, Gaider, Laidlaw, etc, they're all besties. So if anyone dares say "your writing is poo poo, fix this horible bloated mess" then its obvious that person wasn't your friend! and no one is going to risk actually saying anything because They don't want to be labeled as "that evil nasty meanie who wont accept my writing for the perfection it is!" So tl;dr,The DA2 dev team id a massive circlejerk where horrible horible writing is allowed because everyone is autistic.
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Jun 21, 2014 21:59
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HapiMerchant posted:Geek Social Fallacy 3: Friendship above all. Personally I think there's quite a bit of Geek Social Fallacy 1 and 2 here as well: If a friend criticizes me, they aren't actaully my friend, Is there a word for like Writing a fanfic because you dislike something Because that's what I'm looking at here.
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Jun 21, 2014 22:04
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Captain Oblivious posted:Is there a word for like hatefic is the term the cool kids use. or bashfic I guess don't ask how I know these terms please
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Jun 21, 2014 22:14
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HapiMerchant posted:Geek Social Fallacy 3: Friendship above all. Personally I think there's quite a bit of Geek Social Fallacy 1 and 2 here as well: If a friend criticizes me, they aren't actaully my friend, Did you really do a tl:dr for two paragraphs? And getting in denial about how poo poo the thing you are working on is, and being unwilling to criticise your friends, is not some specific geek thing. Look at any hollywood disaster to see similar thinking.
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Jun 21, 2014 22:25
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Geostomp posted:Game writers these days are pretty bad about that. It's like they want to be genre writers working with a huge, complicated setting so they make all these external stories. That wouldn't be bad on its own (well, if they actually had the talent to write well enough to stand without gameplay to fall back on), but they decide to have it all tie together with the actual games. Then we end up with all kinds changes to the story and references to important events that only make sense if you spent extra time and money reading substandard books/comic/whatever else like a really boring homework assignment. Even when the stories actually are better written than the actual games' story (DAII set a really low bar), nobody wants to need extra study to figure out why your returning character has suddenly completely changed and keeps referencing events that never happened in-game. Let's be honest. They are lovely fanfic writers with authority. They have the geeky social outcast backgrounds and the weird fetishes required. Sometimes it works out...sometimes it doesn't. Captain Oblivious posted:Is there a word for like For a story bashing a single character it's called "Revenge Fic." For a story bashing an entire series it's called "Hate fic." And sometimes it's just called bashing.
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Jun 21, 2014 22:27
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marktheando posted:Did you really do a tl:dr for two paragraphs? Oh it's definitely a widespread thing, it's just that there's an actual 'name' for the 'condition' called Geek Social Fallacy (1 through 5) sorry about using tl;dr so cavalierly though.
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Jun 21, 2014 22:34
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It's still a good idea to add some quality controllers into the BioWare offices to crack the whip on their more undesired ideas. Less shameful video game writing is never a bad thing.
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Jun 21, 2014 22:36
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Or just editors with the willingness and ability to tell self-absorbed writers no.
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Jun 21, 2014 22:37
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Cythereal posted:Or just editors with the willingness and ability to tell self-absorbed writers no. This, but for all of story writing (in games/books/comics/films/television) AND journalism. Sadly, video games are following journalism's path here.
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Jun 21, 2014 22:45
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Videogame writers still don't really have editors because writing in videogames still isn't considered very important in most cases.
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Jun 21, 2014 22:49
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Captain Oblivious posted:Videogame writers still don't really have editors because writing in videogames still isn't considered very important in most cases. when will video games finally become the true masterful art that everyone but the players wants it to be?
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Jun 21, 2014 23:02
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HapiMerchant posted:when will video games finally become the true masterful art that everyone but the players wants it to be?
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Jun 21, 2014 23:07
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It might help if these so called writers would stop jerking off in their little echo chambers. Oh, who am I kidding, they'll never ever stop.
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Jun 21, 2014 23:10
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Groetgaffel posted:When all now-living gamers are dead. 2100: As a new century dawns, We here at BiowarEA want to celebrate in fashion! So to kick off the new year, we're releasing Knights of the Jade Dragon Effect 3, the stunning and emotionally fulfilling conclusion to the KotJDE saga! featuring Our Main Character: Lateesha Speaks-with-Fire, everyone's favorite transethnic pansexual omnigender! and all xer old teammates! Joining them in this last part of xer epic is a rather controversial character, but we're sure he'll grow on you! Please welcome Jake Johnson a straight male blast from the past! Trapped in a cryopod for the last hundred years, Jake joins our xeroine to right the wrongs of his empire's past! to prevent any triggering, please be aware in advance Jake Johnson has options in game to transform him into a properly accepting person Get your exclusive day 1 companion now for only 150 bitcoins! Get ready to finally confront the evils of the Heteronormative Collective in this mindbogglingly stunning final part of the KotJDE saga!
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Jun 21, 2014 23:20
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Captain Oblivious posted:Videogame writers still don't really have editors because writing in videogames still isn't considered very important in most cases. Which is part of the reason it still isn't seen as that important. You can't make something respectable unless you approach it with a little bit of professionalism. Besides, the reaction to ME3's endings prove that the public is starting to take this stuff more seriously, so the old days of slapping random junk down and hoping it flies are coming to an end.
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Jun 21, 2014 23:23
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Geostomp posted:Which is part of the reason it still isn't seen as that important. You can't make something respectable unless you approach it with a little bit of professionalism. Optimistic but naive. To think that reactions to ME3s ending is likely to effect any kind of systemic change is like believing reactions to the end of LOST or Battlestar Galactica were going to change anything in the business. As long as the majority eats it up who gives a gently caress?
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Jun 21, 2014 23:27
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Geostomp posted:
Are you really sure about that? This E3 Bioware's presentation prominently featured both Casey Hudson and Mac Walters, the 2 most responsible for that whole shitstorm, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, that just tells me that neither EA nor Bioware really gives a poo poo about the public's reaction. They're over and done with that controversy, they probably expect everyone to have forgotten about it and they're gonna keep doing the same stupid things. Because people keep lapping it up.
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Jun 21, 2014 23:30
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HapiMerchant posted:when will video games finally become the true masterful art that everyone but the players wants it to be? as a Video Game Player i too believe all video games should be about shooting hundreds of nameless men unhindered by the feminist beta shackles of Storytelling and Caring About Things Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Jun 21, 2014 |
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Jun 21, 2014 23:31
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HapiMerchant posted:2100: As a new century dawns, We here at BiowarEA want to celebrate in fashion! So to kick off the new year, we're releasing Knights of the Jade Dragon Effect 3, the stunning and emotionally fulfilling conclusion to the KotJDE saga! What are you even trying to say here?
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Jun 21, 2014 23:34
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Opposing Farce posted:as a Video Game Player i too believe all video games should be about shooting hundreds of nameless men unhindered by the feminist beta shackles of Storytelling and Basic Morality hey I'll have you know shooting nameless men has a long and storied tradition in Video Gaming and I'm rather offended you'd make light of such a core part of my culture. Please apologize immediately. and anyways, I'm not saying all games should be schlock shooters, just that, you know, it's kinda dumb for us to be crying out for validation from art critics and the like when the entire point of a game is to...have fun. I can appreciate a good story and if a game has one it's letting me have fun with the narrative as well as the game play, but when you get Gaidervision like DA2 or a game where the story takes over everything and railroads values and lessons at you I feel it's going too far. marktheando posted:What are you even trying to say here?
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Jun 21, 2014 23:36
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