Interview Choices & Consequences in Dragon Age

[senduran]

And, you know, if you don't like elves or dwarves, do you actually even LIKE fantasy?

Wow, he is a colossal dumbfuck.

Quick, people, tell China Mieville, Jeff Vandermeer, Alan Campbell, George R. R. Martin (okay, he's got dwarves, but you know, not fantasy dwarves), Scott Lynch, R. Scott Bakker, Steven Erikson, and a host of others they didn't/are not writing fantasy. News at eleven!

Funny thing--even some really shitty fantasy writers actually don't include elves or dwarves in their garbage. David Eddings, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan.

Ummm, to be honest, you come off as the 'dumbfuck' since what you said is completely illogical. To say that "not liking elves is to not like fantasy" is not the same thing as saying "fantasy has to include elves". Those are unrelated statements. David Gaider certainly doesn't believe that in any case, if you read the rest of what he has to say on the topic.

Also, he's not even saying "if you don't like elves, you don't like fantasy". He's not making that absolute claim. He's posing a question, suggesting a possibility, trying to explain why some people have such an adverse reaction just because they used a certain trope from the fantasy genre.

Having an 'elf' in your game doesn't make it cliche or unoriginal or generic or anything else. It only becomes those things if the grand total of your elven characterisation ammounts to saying "they are elves; you figure out the rest". The moment you start giving your race called 'elves' a unique history, backstory, behaviour etc., they're as unique and potentially interesting as any other race imaginable.

 

[senduran]

A lot of game developers post here. Mostly useless shit... but aaanyway.
Dgaider posted too, until I made him leave.

Yeah, well, exactly :wink:
He's mentioned this forum once on the Dragon Age forums. It wasn't to praise you

 

[Warden]

He's mentioned this forum once on the Dragon Age forums.

You certainly know the exact day, hour and second that happened, right? Everything's archived in the dragonagecentral.
Go lick biowhore's and dgaider's vagina and stop philosophating.

 

[Elwro]

Dgaider posted too, until I made him leave.

You think too much of yourself, young padawan.

 

[senduran]

Also, he's not even saying "if you don't like elves, you don't like fantasy". He's not making that absolute claim. He's posing a question, suggesting a possibility, trying to explain why some people have such an adverse reaction just because they used a certain trope from the fantasy genre.

Sorry, even suggesting the possibility as if it had some relevance or validity is retarded.

It's not retarted; I'm quite sure there is a strong inverse correlation between liking fantasy and not liking fantasy races.

I mean, who here honestly starts reading a fantasy novel (or whatever) because they really like fantasy, but then throws the book down in disgust the first moment an elf is mentioned? Well, maybe there are actually a few people here who do that.

someone can enjoy any of the writers I listed above while utterly detesting Tolkien

A better and more relevant example would be, which gamer, also a fan of Baldurs Gate II (fantasy with elves), knowing DA is a spiritual successor to BGII, will both like fantasy and dislike elves? I'd guess the numbers of those people are in the 10s, vs the 1000s who like fantasy and like or are indifferent to the names of the races.

Ie. for the target audience of the game, what he says is likely to apply and make sense. :shrug:

I don't even actually dismiss a game/book out of hand if it has elves/dwarves/is set in a pseudo-European medieval genericland, but Gaider's attitude is stupid and painfully self-congratulatory.

That doesn't even make sense. 'self-congratulatory'? He isn't being congratulatory in any sense at all. To me, you're the one with the attitiude. :shrug:

 

[Solohk]

It's not that there's elves in DA, it's that DA thus far looks incredibly generic.

 

[senduran]

It's not that there's elves in DA, it's that DA thus far looks incredibly generic.

Yeah, and this is kind of to be expected. To re-quote David Gaider:

we set ourselves up for this a bit by using the tropes -- but they are not used without purpose, and we have our own twist on those tropes that simply aren't going to be visible on a cursory glance

Any details and interesting aspects, anything that would make the game seem less generic, isn't going to come across in a few minutes of a video. They haven't actually shown us elves and dwarves, so I guess most complaints are really based on the presence of 'orcs' in the video.

D. Gaider once again on their orcs being different:

On the surface, the Dark Spawn would kind of resemble orcs, as they’re an evil horde. However, there’s a little bit more to them. There’s the story that’s told [... read the article this discussion is for]

there is up to a point where you want to use the archetypes, right? They’re there. I think if we didn’t have, say, dwarves and elves... I mean there are certainly fantasy worlds that don’t have those, and essue the standards of fantasy more. That’s fine, I think we very much wanted to use some of the archetypes, so we have, say, elves and dwarves and when you look at them there are things about them that you would expect to see: elves have pointy ears, the dwarves are short and live under ground. And at the same time we want to put our own particular twist on it. Our elves are quite different. Our dwarves are a little more what you’d expect, but we take them in a place that I don’t think that they’ve gone in fantasy before. We do have, like I said, we have our ‘orcs’, so to speak, but we do something different with them as well. So, yeah... it kind of makes us cringe a little bit because when you show it on the surface, if you were to just look at an elf and a dwarf, you wouldn’t know right off the bat what we do that’s different. If you look at a dark spawn, sure on the surface its going to look like it might be more generic fantasy, but I think we’re confident that if we put it out there and people start playing it see the depth that there is actually there, they’re going to know that we haven’t just put out something that we haven’t thought about at all, right? That’s the hope.

I think at the very least the reasonable observer can't say they didn't try, or did the minimum and churned out the most generic stuff possible. We'll have to play the game to decide how fresh and original these races are, but what we know about them already is pretty interesting.

 

[Skald]

It's not retarted; I'm quite sure there is a strong inverse correlation between liking fantasy and not liking fantasy races.

I mean, who here honestly starts reading a fantasy novel (or whatever) because they really like fantasy, but then throws the book down in disgust the first moment an elf is mentioned? Well, maybe there are actually a few people here who do that.

And who starts reading a fantasy novel, because they really like the genre, but then throws the book down because no elves or dwarves are present?

 

[senduran]

It's not retarted; I'm quite sure there is a strong inverse correlation between liking fantasy and not liking fantasy races.

I mean, who here honestly starts reading a fantasy novel (or whatever) because they really like fantasy, but then throws the book down in disgust the first moment an elf is mentioned? Well, maybe there are actually a few people here who do that.

And who starts reading a fantasy novel, because they really like the genre, but then throws the book down because no elves or dwarves are present?

Probably very few. This is the point I made earlier: he never even suggested fantasy has to have elves.

Here's his response to someone having the same general complaint with this interview quote:

Now a days, the majority of published fantasy has neither elves nor dwarves.

Yeah yeah yeah. Once again, I was speaking as opposed to writing, so I didn't really have time to articulate myself fully. My point was more that there comes a point where one has to wonder if the game in question is even something you're actually interested in as opposed to elves and dwarves specifically being required in order to make it fantasy.

Ie. the people who have a problem with elves wouldn't like BGII either. And if you don't like BGII, DA probably isn't the game for you. Conversely, if you're interested in DA because you liked BGII, it's not very likely you actively dislike elves in your cRPGs.

 

[Skald]

Well, I'd call that backtracking, but okay.

 

[Warden]

You think too much of yourself, young padawan.

Just so you know.. that "new SoZ trailer" news comment you posted; the trailer was an old trailer when you posted it.

 

[Solohk]

stuff, D. Gaider quotes

Sorry, I don't accept "It's cool, trust us", even from developers I like.

 

[Saxon1974]

I think one of the main things I dont like in the Bioware and Obsidian games are the fact that they are so stroy driven. I mean they do that pretty well, but I feel too much like im watching a movie then actually playing a game.

There are games that tell good stories without being like watching a movie, I agree its a design decision for them, but not one im particularly fond of.

Not sure If I will buy this.

 

[Mareus]

I think one of the main things I dont like in the Bioware and Obsidian games are the fact that they are so stroy driven. I mean they do that pretty well, but I feel too much like im watching a movie then actually playing a game.

There are games that tell good stories without being like watching a movie, I agree its a design decision for them, but not one im particularly fond of.

Not sure If I will buy this.

I don't mind if a game is story driven and if I feel like watching a movie instead of playing a game, as long as the gameplay part is good. However I find it amazing that Bioware has never managed to outdo Baldur's Gate after all these years, and funny.. BG does not try to feel like a movie.

 

[made]

Witcher had elves and dorfs that, while fitting the tried archetypes, didn't slap you in the face with obnoxious cliches.

Morrowind had an interesting take on dwarves (that weren't actually dawrves) and a fairly sophisticated culture of dark elves.

It's not impossible to give those races a distinct character while keeping some of the familiar stereotypes. Knowing Bioware's track record, though, I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[crufty]

in gaming terms there aren't enough rpgs to have cliches.

I guess we've given up on the turn vs phase based combat meme?

 

[senduran]

It's not impossible to give those races a distinct character while keeping some of the familiar stereotypes. Knowing Bioware's track record, though, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Their track record of not including them at all, or being required to include highly specific, pre-defined ones due to making D&D games, you mean?

This is their very first go at being able to make their own traditional fantasy races. No one has any basis for thinking they'll be bad/generic (unless you just happen to think all Bioware writing is bad). Those that make that assumption are just cynics/pessimists. That's their problem though. One can only hope their cynicism/pessimism doesn't stop them playing what might turn out to be a good game.

 

[Lesifoere]

It's not impossible to give those races a distinct character while keeping some of the familiar stereotypes. Knowing Bioware's track record, though, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Their track record of not including them at all, or being required to include highly specific, pre-defined ones due to making D&D games, you mean?

Hmm, no, try this:

KotOR: stuffed with cliches.
Jade Empire: see above.
NWN: see above.
Mass Effect: see above, plus Firefly rip-offs.

So when was the last time Bioware put unique or unusual spins on tropes exactly?

 

[made]

Bioware's track record of serving stereotypes and creating generic and shallow characters, whether in D&D, SW or their own IPs like JE.

 

[Saxon1974]

I think one of the main things I dont like in the Bioware and Obsidian games are the fact that they are so stroy driven. I mean they do that pretty well, but I feel too much like im watching a movie then actually playing a game.

There are games that tell good stories without being like watching a movie, I agree its a design decision for them, but not one im particularly fond of.

Not sure If I will buy this.

I don't mind if a game is story driven and if I feel like watching a movie instead of playing a game, as long as the gameplay part is good. However I find it amazing that Bioware has never managed to outdo Baldur's Gate after all these years, and funny.. BG does not try to feel like a movie.

I agree, while I know there are many people on here with issues with BGI and II, I still liked them far better than anything they have done since.

Im not sure its the movie telling that is the problem though, I think alot of it is the jump to 3D, since that happened environments have become very static and boring in my opinion. I have hopes that as technology improves that will get better.

But your right, BG didnt really try and be a movie, niether did BGII and the BGII was story driven and quite good.

I dont think I like the cut scene cinematics much, feels like it takes me out of the game and like im watching TV. That being said, I agree with you in that they are ok if the game play parts are good.

 

[senduran]

Their track record of not including them at all, or being required to include highly specific, pre-defined ones due to making D&D games, you mean?

Hmm, no, try this:

KotOR: stuffed with cliches.
Jade Empire: see above.
NWN: see above.
Mass Effect: see above, plus Firefly rip-offs.

So when was the last time Bioware put unique or unusual spins on tropes exactly?

I do not find your 'argument' "stuffed with cliches" very compelling. Perhaps if you justify your claim?

Anyway, KotOR and NWN used other people's pre-defined races. Jade Empire only had humans. Mass Effect has a whole host of fascinating and original species with unique and non-cliche histories. As with everything ever written in the past few hundred years, you can draw similarities between anything. But it's the differences that are important.

 

[senduran]

Bioware's track record of serving stereotypes and creating generic and shallow characters, whether in D&D, SW or their own IPs like JE.

Ah. I can make my own unjustified (yet more correct!) claims too: Bioware has no such track record, since all their characters were unique and deep. :shrug:

 

[Lesifoere]

Bioware's track record of serving stereotypes and creating generic and shallow characters, whether in D&D, SW or their own IPs like JE.

Ah. I can make my own unjustified (yet more correct!) claims too: Bioware has no such track record, since all their characters were unique and deep. :shrug:

Oh, I see, you're Volourn 2.0. Should've said from the start so you wouldn't waste people's time.

 

[senduran]

is Mass Effect a fun game to play for a period of 3-4 months until i get my hands on something else?

Unless you play it very very little each weak, it won't last you 3-4 months. But it is a fun game to play. I'm sure there are Mass Effect threads you can read here (or start) for more information.

 

[senduran]

Bioware's track record of serving stereotypes and creating generic and shallow characters, whether in D&D, SW or their own IPs like JE.

Ah. I can make my own unjustified (yet more correct!) claims too: Bioware has no such track record, since all their characters were unique and deep. :shrug:

Oh, I see, you're Volourn 2.0. Should've said from the start so you wouldn't waste people's time.

As you can tell, I'm new to the forum so have no idea who Volourn is. But I'll let you win your 'argument' with that ad-hom, if it makes you feel better.