I was speaking in a bit of abstraction before - I wasn't suggesting that giving a beggar should always result in some cause-effect chain - but I do believe that an "ideal" RPG, that is, something we'll never see in our lifetimes, is one that gives us choice and consequence for our actions. Sometimes, this means choices that seem insignificant actually are significant, because we don't know the real outcome our choices, no matter our intentions.

Storytelling is an illusion, I know that - an author of any book is a big fat liar conning you into believing in the veracity of his story. But, ideally, I don't want an illusion for a game, a game can be reactive. So long as a game can react, it can potentially be a "true story" - because it unfolds dynamically in real time. I don't expect BioWare to create this kind of game, and what you describe is a cheap workaround. I agree with your basic points, but I would prefer for BioWare to sit down and plot every choice in their game. Every potential choice you get in DA3, ideally, they should create some kind ramifiication for - big or small.

If you piss off that first NPC you meet, maybe all it does it get you some line ten hours later from some asshole. Sure, that's sometimes al you need, is a cosmetic effect. But I also want choices which branch. I also want choices that feed into one another. It's not about building a Choose Your Own Adventure, it's about building threads. These threads interact with one another and spawn new permeatations. It's that kind of complexity that makes choice into a game. It's fully possible, as well, to design such a system, though as I've admitted, difficult. It would be worth it though.

It's fully possible to build a system which 'simulates' choice to the extent where you have an "infinite" amount of possibility within the game world. At that point, your choices do become real, they aren't illusions; they aren't hardcoded, it's just systems of a game playing off one another to create new divergent meaning. In theory, with today's technology, it can be done. If executed well it would be fun. If executed well, you could even have a coherent story like the kind we see in your average RPG. It would be massively replayable and open up the game to so much experimentation and vigor.

 

Lord Raine can always be counted on for a long long long message that has a lot of good points. Basically, I agree that if the player feels their choices matter or said another way if the player actually cares about the world they've been asked to believe in, including their companions, and their role then that makes for a good system.

Why did I hate ME3? I couldn't get myself to care about it. Fallout 3 was the first I played in that series and it was an amazing experience because I cared about my character and liked the overarching quest as well as smaller plot points. Fallout Las Vegas wasn't bad but I couldn't get myself to care about the quest until much later and felt like I was being dragged along for the first half of the game through menial stuff. I also wonder about bias because the first game I play in a series sometimes seems like the best (for ex. Kotor 2 even though many tell me that the first is tons better and I shrug).

I'm doing a DA2 replay right now and I was really pissed when my sister was kidnapped. I was also immersed and "felt emotion" or whatever at other plot points. Not all of them (such as the mother one which was just like wtf). There's a reason why I play hours on end without stopping, it's a game that immerses me in the world even though I have a ton of complaints about things like the reuse of the same handful of locations.

As for granularity in choice, whenever an in-game action is highlighted I do expect some sort of follow through. It's kind of like when reading a story or watching a movie, I put meaning and symbolism even when it might not be intended by the creator.

Random plot threads like a beggar asking for coin and not causing any ripples would only make sense if there was some larger point about how some things never change\some people cannot or do not want to get out of their circumstances.

On the other hand, I've never played a game or watched a movie or read a book where nothing happens and there are no changes. Even in the literary stuff there are epiphanies even if circumstances do not change.

In terms of choice, there are consequential choices and cosmetic choices and they can overlap.

A cosmetic choice: The look of my companions armor or my own armor. It can become consequential if it is tied in with the world and if certain colors\types of armor symbolize a certain stance\etc. leading to consequential effects (for example wearing light side guard armor will prevent access to certain seedier parts of a town).

A seamless experience is created when the the game play elements work in harmony with the theme\world experience\story being told.

Of course, I liked the ME3 dlc where Shepard and crew have a party and dance around and enjoy themselves. It had a story behind it but also was just a nice way to get to know companions (maybe we could have gotten a little further with some things , and effected my "care factor." I played first time without any DLCs so I had a negative opinion of the overall ending of the game that didn't live up to the premise and promise of the first.

rambled but not as lengthy as Lord Raine

 

Ah, I just point something that I want and then I'm treated like and idiot just because it's just a minor and kinda dumb wish, but it's something that matters to me so I just went ahead and pointed out. I didn't discuss anything really i portant of the plot or characterization, and I'm the idiot of the turn. Annoyng, but I gotta say that's not really unfair.

Now, as always Chime and Lord Raine fuck you for those giant posts, but like Lyrium said those post have really good points, specially Raine's. A true open world makes harder for me to care about the story or the characters, a railroad plot is easier and better when you want to creat a narrative, since free roaming messes with the time and necessity part, but freedom is fundamental to a RPG, simply shoehorning someone in a story will not work, as simply telli g you are the hero, go kill the bad guy. So some games use the old "the bad guy destroyed your village now you want revenge" and that's cheap but it's something.

What I loved in DAO is that you could create, develop and use your character's personality even before the great plot began, and that helped a lot in immersion and the whole caring about your character thing.

In DA2 that didn't happen. You couldn't see or make who Hawke was until wuite later in the game, and by missing what his old life was, how the trip and flife of refugee and even how Hawke adapted to Kirkwall, we simple couldn't care enough about him, and if it wasn't the awesome voice acting and companions, I wouldn't give a shit about anyone, specially Hawke. And unlike Skyrim, where iphow you develop your PC is almsot enterily like in a tabletop RPG, DA2 didn't leave any space to role-play, they spjust threw into plots like some sort of ragdoll, using barely (and most of time not at all) disguised plot devices.

 

I just did a replay of DAO, awakenings, witch hunt and am continuing on through DA2 because of this thread.

One thing that annoyed me about DAO was the combat. For its time, it isn't bad and no different really than KOTOR or Jade Empire. It just hasn't aged well and can be extremely boring (part of this can also be attributed to the art design of the settings). I enjoy the ability to conduct battles tactically, but there has to be a solution where you can get tactics AND more visually interesting combat within this series.

One place I think DA2 could have done a better job is in the prologue. Like Invictus mentioned, you don't really get much of a chance to design your Hawke's personality before you are thrust into a main plot point. Part of that is because you are hemmed into certain profiles by your class choice and part is the prologue seems shorter than any of the Origins in DAO.

I particularly hate that who dies in the Prologue is based on class choice. It would have been better with an interrupt system where you have to choose or for there to be two ogres attacking simultaneously, one attacking each potential victim and who dies being determined by which fight you choose to jump into. Anything would have been better than class choice. Taking that in-game choice away from the play destroyed immersion immediately.

Has there been any word if DA:I is going to be PC and next gen only or is it going to be PC, 360, and One? Because if I'm going to be throwing down hundreds of dollars on something, its going to be a PC upgrade. There is just more utility there compared to $500 for the X-box One.

 

It is confirmed for the current generation.

 

It's going to be on "everything": current gen, next gen, and PC. So that basically makes it a current gen game released a year after the new consoles are out. We can only hope they have some bored programmers lying around to actually make the next gen versions marginally more interesting (please? please? Just slightly better AI...)

 

I'll be happy if they just fix the bugs in the ME3 AI that you know they're porting over for this.

 

Ah yeah, if ME3 used Frostbite they probably will just use assets- Actually, didn't ME3 use SWTOR animations and shit? And SWTOR was made in Hero. Who knows what's portable, but I imagine we'll see a lot of stuff from ME3 in DA3.

 

http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2013/08/dragon-age-keep-to-tailor-make-new-save-imports/

I'll just leave this here.

 

Its Bioware. They recycle the animation from everything. You can see it from ME2 to DA2 and SWTOR.

The hand motions, the strange half shrug/point.

 

Called it, sort of. Apparently instead of a comic/graphic novel DLC for free, they're doing some kind of Pottermore thing that has comic/graphic novel elements.

Moving to the cloud for choices could work out well, if they don't fuck it up. We'll call this one a "wait and see."

 

There is also this app coming out for mobile devices starring Morrigan, (and possible Oghren?) of all people.

 

This would have been an interesting DRM scheme - if you don't buy the games, your saves aren't uploaded to their cloud network, so you can't import them for the next game?

Gosh, I better stop using my brain before I give them some truly awful ideas!

 

It would just hose over the console players. PC players have always been able to use resources like downloading saves. Even if they did this, a fix or workaround or way to game the system would be devised within the first month of release. It wouldn't be a middle finger to the ones they most desperately want to flip off, and that's all that really matters. Trying to sink people that way would just buy them more hate and bad press, and after the fiasco of Mass Effect 3 (which they're still standing behind officially, in case you were wondering if they recanted or not), they can't afford much more.

I'm not saying they aren't dumb enough to try it. They are. It just wouldn't end well for them, because the minority that actually pirate the game would just download a pre-loaded save, and the rest would flip shit at yet more limitations and mistrust from a company that has already lied and deceived them.

 

So, Qunari are going to be a playable race. Male and female.

 

Link for those of you too lazy to use Google-fu.

 

Not sure if you accidentally responded in the wrong thread... or pasted the wrong link.

 

I would say wrong thread.

 

*Cough*, yeah had a copy/paste error, I guess. Fixed that.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WeZbGRglWs&feature=youtu.be
PAX footage. Game looks awesome