What are you playing now - the plays the thing

[BruceVC]

It kind of confuses me why choices like that were given in the first place if the devs weren't planning on following on them. It wasn't just some accidental death stuff like in Baldur's Gate 1, they were pivotal, scripted moments where you were given the specific choice of whether you wanted to kill a character or not.

 

If you look at DAO it can be seen that there are aspects of the game that aren't really sequel friendly. Though at the same time, the game was expensive to make and much more of an unknown for how successful it would be. So there are choices in the game that really don't lend itself to happy times for sequel production.

 

When making a sequel, we do have to decide on what level of canon we have in our games. For BG2, for example, everything was assumed canon and the starting party was basically made up of the most popular group make up (Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira, Khalid, Dynaheir) and other NPCs that could be dead typically had "But I killed you" dialogues to which the NPC would respond "Aha! You thought so but I wasn't" or something similar (thinking of Xzar here).

 

So with Leliana survive, my presumption (I haven't taken part in the writing meetings for DA2, and don't particular care to waste their time talking about old news at this point) is that Leliana was seen as a character that could be used as an interesting tie in because:

 

1) Defiling the ashes was a rare event. Most people didn't do it, and it's possible they did it without Leliana present to boot.

2) It can be rationalized that she was simply left for dead, not outright killed. This is where the "whoops, we forgot that our system had deathblows in it so people would see that Leliana had her head cutoff" becomes an issue, however. (Although I think some people actually figured we kept a different plot state based upon whether or not she was deathblowed which is a bit silly...)

 

 

The issue really comes in that we wanted to try a plot import. It was something being considered that ended up seeing a reasonable about of positive feedback from ME2's release. There's a lot of people that feel that if we don't provide such a feature, it makes them feel that their choices in the previous games are irrelevant (this is not a perspective I believe though, for the record. I have no issues replaying Fallout 1 knowing that Fallout 2 has a set canon). I think if it's done really well, it could be very interesting. I don't think BioWare has done it very well yet though.

 

The big hurdle is, of course, the same hurdle we get within a confined game: how do we reconcile branching narratives and reconverge the storyline at some point. The big advantage of Fallout is that you can make these extreme decisions that ultimately would have very different ramifications if done, and for the sequels they can just go "Well canon is this." This opens up the various "I have destroyed everything and everyone" types of playthroughs. Dragon Age intrinsically cannot do that, since reconciling that branch would be pretty fundamentally impossible.

 

There are pros and cons to each, and frankly depending on the mood you catch me in I would probably say I prefer one or the other. Although if it were entirely up to me, I'd probably go with "choose a canon" and not do imports. Not out of spite for previous player choices, but because I do miss some of the more out there types of choices you could make in other games. Brotherhood of Steel completely wiped out? That's cool! Was fun to boot! And so forth.

 

That said though, I think a well done "import" process is a better ideal. Whether or not it is achievable is a different question I suppose. But it's not inconsisent of me to think that's a better ideal, because I think the ideal RPG would be one that doesn't bother with reconciling player's choices and actually allows a more free flowing narrative. The idea of mutually exclusive choice is one I love, and even if the basic plot points sitll all get achieved, I'm okay with the concept of showing very different aspects of the plot based upon player choices, I do understand that it poses very serious scope risks.

 

Alan you make some insightful and interesting points. This is probably a stupid question but do you work for Bioware or are you some sort of developer? I think I remember someone mentioning this but I am not sure

[Nepenthe]

Alan you make some insightful and interesting points. This is probably a stupid question but do you work for Bioware or are you some sort of developer? I think I remember someone mentioning this but I am not sure

I hate to answer questions directed at other people, but yes, Alan is a long-time member (longer than me) of the community who now works for Bioware.

Picked up Blops2 and Absolution, today. Probably gonna kickstart my gaming with blops, see if I can find the motivation to enjoy something slightly more intellectually demanding in Dishonored... And Absolution I had preordered the day they became available, so that was that.

Yeah i like Hitman so far, just not too cool with the police pursuing you missions, that's not how I remember how Hitman plays. Hitman does all the chasing damit lol

You've forgotten the last mission of Contracts, then...

And the first mission of contracts! I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, too.

[BruceVC]

Alan you make some insightful and interesting points. This is probably a stupid question but do you work for Bioware or are you some sort of developer? I think I remember someone mentioning this but I am not sure

I hate to answer questions directed at other people, but yes, Alan is a long-time member (longer than me) of the community who now works for Bioware.

Picked up Blops2 and Absolution, today. Probably gonna kickstart my gaming with blops, see if I can find the motivation to enjoy something slightly more intellectually demanding in Dishonored... And Absolution I had preordered the day they became available, so that was that.

Yeah i like Hitman so far, just not too cool with the police pursuing you missions, that's not how I remember how Hitman plays. Hitman does all the chasing damit lol

You've forgotten the last mission of Contracts, then...

And the first mission of contracts! I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, too.

 

Thanks Nep. Its good to get the opinion of someone who actually works at a big gaming company like Bioware. There is loads of conjecture about how a company like Bioware operates and for me its interesting to get information that can be shared, obviously somethings are confidential and I respect that

[WorstUsernameEver]

Your statement refers to decisions we made for DAO. Since your statement implies that enforcing canon (to the extent of Fallout 2 or something) is inappropriate, any thoughts on what you would have preferred we did differently for DAO?

 

I'll try to explain myself better (and also note that I'm specifically referring to the choices concerning your companions): what confuses me is why we're given the chance to import our save states but some consequences of our choices, which could have easily been sidestepped just by not being mentioned/picked upon, were simply ignored, replaced by an enforced canon. It doesn't feel like a particularly coherent system. I understand fully well that not every choice can be paid off dramatically in a sequel, but then I would have preferred to either see a canon established (not just for a few characters, but for all the story, like in Fallout 1 -> 2 -> 3 etc.) or for the sequels to only mention stuff that would pay off later. I hope this is clearer.

 

As a side note, in Dragon Age: Origins characters don't die, they simply fall unconscious, and resurrection is not exactly commonplace, which lends to a character death (more or less always coming from a bifurcated/binary choice that is given ample cinematic time) a completely different feeling from a character's death in Baldur's Gate. I don't remember the PR campaign for Baldur's Gate 2 (I honestly didn't follow the gaming press at the time), but if I'm understanding things correctly, plot states importing wasn't even ever mentioned in the first place, which also helped set different expectations.

[Malcador]

Replaying Blood Money so I can get a better idea of what they fscked up in Absolution. Worst I've heard so far is the disguise system is dependent on Instinct, so that's not that bad.

[Guest Slinky]

Replaying Blood Money so I can get a better idea of what they fscked up in Absolution. Worst I've heard so far is the disguise system is dependent on Instinct, so that's not that bad.

 

From what I've gathered there is no free saving, but a crappy checkpoint system. If you load previous checkpoint, ALL enemies you have taken down will respawn. Also the maps are no longer big where you can explore and look around for stuff you can make use, they are small, linear and full of enemies. In practise, they made the game as a linear stealth game where you need to go from hidingspot to hidingspot.

 

I will buy it from a good enough sale when I see one, but don't expect much from it.

[Rosbjerg]

Just finished Telltale's Walking Dead.. I'm still a little emotional, what an ending - perfect..

[BruceVC]

Just finished Telltale's Walking Dead.. I'm still a little emotional, what an ending - perfect..

 

You are the second person today that has noted that the Walking Dead leaves an indelible emotional impact, I must get these games they seem worthwhile from what everyone is saying

[Rosbjerg]

It's a great game - it takes some stupid detours once in a while and the control are wonky, but they really know how to make you care..

[melkathi]

 

You are the second person today that has noted that the Walking Dead leaves an indelible emotional impact, I must get these games they seem worthwhile from what everyone is saying

 

Well, now you wont have to do what I did: wait for all episodes to come out

Though since I hardly have the time to play it now, I'll wait for the Christmas Sale

[SadExchange]

You are the second person today that has noted that the Walking Dead leaves an indelible emotional impact, I must get these games they seem worthwhile from what everyone is saying

 

Well, now you wont have to do what I did: wait for all episodes to come out

Though since I hardly have the time to play it now, I'll wait for the Christmas Sale

 

Good idea and don't mean to be promoting since I don't work for Amazon, but it is on sale right now.

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B007WWW2C8/ref%3Dnosim/water70e-20

[Oner]

Also, just finished The Walking Dead.

Likewise. I'm not sure what to think of the ending though.

[BruceVC]

You are the second person today that has noted that the Walking Dead leaves an indelible emotional impact, I must get these games they seem worthwhile from what everyone is saying

 

Well, now you wont have to do what I did: wait for all episodes to come out

Though since I hardly have the time to play it now, I'll wait for the Christmas Sale

Yes I can get them all together, it will be like a Walking Dead gaming marathon

 

You are the second person today that has noted that the Walking Dead leaves an indelible emotional impact, I must get these games they seem worthwhile from what everyone is saying

 

Well, now you wont have to do what I did: wait for all episodes to come out

Though since I hardly have the time to play it now, I'll wait for the Christmas Sale

 

Good idea and don't mean to be promoting since I don't work for Amazon, but it is on sale right now.

 

http://www.amazon.co...sim/water70e-20

 

Good tip, thanks

[Volourn]

I find it silly that people seem to think returning npcs in BG2 is a-okay after you killed them in BG1 but somehow people burst a blood vessel when it occurs in DA2. It's ridiculous. And, who cares if it was 'hyped'. The result is the same. It didn't ruin BG2 nor did it ruin DA2. ideally, for me, there'd be more continuity but since no game has really done it, seems like agrbage to be beyond harsh over it in one game - of course it seems to be BIO who remains the target (just ask the ME series) yet other companies get free passes. L0L

[Guest Slinky]

You couldn't transfer your choices via save file to BG2, thus you can't expect the game know what you did in the first game.

 

In DA and ME you could, so you kinda expect the game to respect your choises. R00fles.

[alanschu]

BG2 actually does import your character. There were people that spoke out against choices not being honored too.

[Volourn]

"You couldn't transfer your choices via save file to BG2, thus you can't expect the game know what you did in the first game."

 

Yes, you do. And, the game even mocks you when you talk to the returning NPCs. 'I thoguht I killed you!" L0LZ

 

On top of what Alan said, people whined about not being able to keep all their BG1 'ph@t lewt' (except for a handful of random stuff like those stupid pants).

[Guest Slinky]

Sure, but only your stats, nothing like is edwin dead or not stuff.

[Volourn]

You are making excuses for BIO/BG2. Why?

[Guest Slinky]

You are comparing game that could transfer your CHOICES to the next game to a game that could transfer only your pc's stats. Why?

[alanschu]

Eh, I remember having heated arguments with those people on various places. They may have been less justified than now, but it did happen.

[Volourn]

"You are comparing game that could transfer your CHOICES to the next game to a game that could transfer only your pc's stats. Why? "

 

They could have transferred more data but BIO chose not to. They also trasnferred equipment as welln but chose only to transfer a handful of stuff.

 

Why defend one but not the other?

[Guest Slinky]

Shouldn't that be obvious?

 

They chosed not to include any choises to transfer for BG. Thus nobody in their right mind could/should expect the sequel respect anything they did in the first game. How could the game know what you did? No ability to transfer anything, thus no problem.

 

But they did include it for DA. Thus allowing players to shape up the story by their choises. So of course you also expect the game respect those choises.

[Volourn]

Obvious delusion. They chose to be more lazy and you give them credit for it. L0L BG series fanboys make me sad.

[alanschu]

Yeah, I remember people being quite upset at losing their Defender +5 too actually.